Madonna with Writing Child

The Madonna with the Christ Child Writing is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Pinturicchio, painted around 1494-1498 and housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in the United States.

The painting is derived from the Madonna of Peace (c. 1490), a simplification for a less acculturated commissioner, perhaps a private family. The Virgin sits on a kind of cask, and is offering a book to the Child, who writes on it. The garments of the Child are perhaps inspired by the late Byzantine mosaics seen by Pinturicchio in Rome.

In the background is a small depiction of the Flight into Egypt and two symmetrical trees, one which is a palm, a symbol of martyrdom.