Of the early Madonnas of Raphael, it is noticeable how many present the Virgin engaged in reading a book, while the child is occupied in other ways, sometimes even seeking to interrupt the mother and disengage her attention. Thus in one in the Berlin museum, which is formal, though unaffected, Mary reads a book, while the child plays with a goldfinch; in the Madonna in the Casa Connestabile, at Perugia, the child plays with the leaves of the book; in the Madonna del Cardellino, the little S. John presents a goldfinch to Jesus, and the mother looks away from her book to observe the children; in that at Berlin, which is from the Casa Colonna, the child is held on the mother’s knee in a somewhat struggling attitude, and has his left hand upon the top of her dress, near her neck, his right upon her shoulder, while the mother, with a look of maternal tenderness, holds the book aside. In the middle period of Raphael’s work this motive appears once at least in the St. Petersburg Madonna, which is a quiet landscape-scene, where the child is in the Madonna’s lap: she holds a book, which she has just been reading; the little S. John kneels before his divine companion with infantine grace, and offers him a cross, which he receives with a look of tender love; the Madonna’s eyes are directed to the prophetic play of the children with a deep, earnest expression. The use of the book is presumably to denote the Madonna’s piety; and in the earlier pictures she is not only the object of adoration to the worshipper, who sees her in her earthly form, yet endowed with sinless grace, but the object also of interest to the child, who sees in her the mother. This reciprocal relation of mother and child is sometimes expressed with great force, as in the Madonna della Casa Tempi, in the Pinacothek at Munich, where the Virgin, who is standing, tenderly presses the child’s head against her face, while he appears to whisper words of endearment. In these and other of the earlier Madonnas of Raphael, there is an enthusiasm, and a dreamy sentiment which seems to seek expression chiefly through the representation of holy womanhood, the child being a part of the interpretation of the mother. The mystic solemnity of the subject is relieved by a lightness of touch, which was the irrepressible assertion of a strong human feeling. Later, in what is called his middle period, a cheerfulness and happy contemplation of life pervade Raphael’s work, as in the Bridgewater Madonna, where the child, stretched in the mother’s lap, looks up with a graceful and lively action, and fixes his eyes upon her in deep thought, while she looks back with maternal, reverent joy. The Madonna of the Chair illustrates the same general sentiment, where the mother appears as a beautiful and blooming woman, looking out of the picture in the tranquil enjoyment of motherly love; the child, full and strong in form, leans upon her bosom in a child’s careless attitude, the picture of trust and content.