The Virgin and Child surrounded by Five Angels

Five, and no names

Like other entries in this catalogue, the title counts its angels rather than identifying them. Five is an odd number, which means the group cannot be split evenly on either side of the Virgin — a small point, but it is the kind of decision that shows angels being used as a compositional material. None is given a rank, and none is given a name; in Western convention only Michael, Gabriel and Raphael are individuals, and everyone else is a body in a group.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the work to 1470 and gives Sandro Botticelli, an Italian painter, filed under Early Renaissance. The recorded dimensions are 40 x 58 cm — a small panel — and the measured colour family is red. The recorded location is the Louvre in Paris. The record also files the entry as a group portrait alongside its religious categories.

Attendance as an office

The verb that fits this class of angel is "surround". Their function is presence: they establish that the figure at the centre is not in an ordinary room. The tradition's ladder of nine ranks assigns contemplation to the top and human contact to the bottom, and attendance on the Virgin sits in neither place cleanly. Painting solved that by not asking, and this catalogue records the group as the pictures present it — counted, anonymous, and arranged.