This relief, like the previous one, was inspired by the representations of Madonna and Child that emerged during the Quattrocento in northern Italy. The features of the Virgin Mary’s face are remarkable, and it may look a portrait, with her wide face and her hair off her forehead thanks to a tiara from which a veil comes out. She has been portrayed in a three-quarter view, dressed in Roman style with a robe, covered by a veil with fine creases that, fastened by a clasp in her chest, wraps the whole scene, including the Christ Child figure. The Child is up, standing on a cherub’s wings and covered by a wide robe that only shows his arms and feet. The Virgin Mary’s hair is made up of thin parallel locks, with one of the locks over her ear. The Christ Child’s hair is curly, and He has a halo on his crown. Virgin Mary’s hands, with her middle and ring finger together and her index and little finger separate, express the love and protection she wants to give her son. The whole scene is represented in an oval within a rectangle whose corners are crowned by cherub’s heads. Both the figures’ hairs and the cherub’s wings show traces of gilding while their eyes, mouths and her clasp show some touches of colour.

This Madonna and Child relief is part of a series of works of art, all of which are very much alike in size, materials, models, techniques and style, and which may be attributed, under Diego Siloe and Felipe Bigarny’s influences, to Gregorio Pardo.

Gregorio Pardo (Burgos, c. 1512/1513-1552) was Felipe Bigarny’s and his first wife’s María Sáez Pardo first son. In 1532, when he was about nineteen years old, he moved to Zaragoza to work at Damian Forment’s workshop, where he trained for two years to learn the art of drawing and the alabaster technique.

In 1535-1536 he worked in Valencia and, once back in Burgos, his hometown, he went on to help in his father’s workshop until he moved to Toledo in 1537, where he married one of the daughters of Alonso de Covarrubias, the Master Architect of the Cathedral. He worked with Covarrubias on the Alcázar of Toledo (as well as with Francisco de Villalpando, Gaspar de Vega and Enrique Egas Jr.) and, together with Felipe Bigarny, he was in charge, among other jobs, of half of the Cathedral’s choir stalls, since the other half had been entrusted to Alonso Berruguete.

He was, no doubt, a predestined artist who knew how to benefit from his position, being the first son of one of the best sculptors of the time, and collaborator of his father-in-law, the architect Alonso de Covarrubias. Had it not been for his premature death, Gregorio Pardo would have become one of the most prestigious sculptors of Spain during the Renaissance. His works show he not only knew the alabaster and wood techniques very well, but also the fact that, when it came to choosing and designing his models, he always followed certain aesthetics thanks to his father’s strong influence.