Madonna and Child with Saint Roch and a Donor

The kneeling figure in this painting, whose identity is unknown, is portrayed in the posture given to donors of religious art to show their piety. He may have commissioned the work as a votive offering to the Virgin Mary, the Christ Child, and Saint Roch in gratitide for protection against the disease. Though probably a legendary figure, Saint Roch was believed to have performed miraculous cures of plague victims while traveling in Italy and himself survived the disease. Devotion to him was first documented in Northern Italy (where this picture was painted) during a series of epidemics in the late 1470s.