The Visible Madonna (Leighton's)

Grayscale illustration of a young woman in a rich cloak visiting children in ragged clothes. The children crowd around her, clutching at her skirts.

In a small outbuilding on a Florentine hillside, Baldassarre sits on the straw with a bowl in his hands as Tessa kneels before him, holding up her baby. When she proudly shows the child and speaks of her simple happiness, the intimate scene softens Baldassarre’s bitterness and awakens his pity for her innocent life.

"They all sat up to listen, while the children trotted or crawled towards her, and pulled her black skirts, as if they were impatient at being all that long way off her face. She yielded to them, weary as she was, and sat down on the straw, while the little pale things peeped into her basket and pulled her hair down, and the feeble voices around her said, ‘The Holy Virgin be praised! It was the procession. ‘The Mother of God has had pity on us!'" ("The Visible Madonna", Chapter 44).

Leighton, Frederic (1830-1896)

Swain, Joseph (1820-1909), engraver

George Eliot Archive , edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org

1863, 1880

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Leighton, Frederic (1830-1896), The Visible Madonna (Leighton's), George Eliot Illustrations Gallery, George Eliot Archive , edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://www.georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/83584