Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Angels

A number where a rank would go

The title counts. It does not name and it does not rank: two angels, and nothing else about them. In the enthroned Virgin type a count is a statement about the frame rather than about heaven — an even number flanks, an odd number breaks symmetry, and two is the smallest count that can flank at all. The nine orders have no bearing on any of it. What is described is a structure, and the angels are the part of the structure that holds the sides.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the work to 1480 and gives Hans Memling, filed as Flemish and Northern Renaissance. It measures 57 x 42 cm — small, and by the record's numbers a devotional panel rather than an altarpiece. The measured colour families are brown and red. The recorded location is the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

The largest group in the catalogue

Thirty-seven of the 224 titles catalogued here name a Virgin or a Madonna, which makes the enthroned or seated Virgin with attendants the commonest setting for an angel on this site. That is worth stating plainly, because it means the typical angel of Western painting is not Michael in armour and not Gabriel with a lily. It is an unnamed figure standing beside somebody more important.