Before Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, there was Sandro Botticelli. The pioneering Italian Renaissance painter frequently returned to the figure of Madonna and Child, creating over 40 variations of this subject. Unlike medieval artists who depicted Mary as a rigid, smiling queen, Botticelli emphasized her human psychology. His Madonnas are famously melancholic, gazing downward with a heavy expression as if foreseeing the infant Christ's future sacrifice.
Botticelli Masterpiece Travels to India
One of these works, Madonna and Child (circa 1490), a tempera painting on loan from Florence's Museo Stibbert, has arrived in New Delhi. It serves as the centerpiece of 'One Mother, Many Mother Tongues', an exhibition opening June 22 at the Humayun's Tomb Museum. This is the first time an original Botticelli masterpiece is shown in India, following last year's successful tour of Caravaggio's Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy (1606).
Cross-Cultural Exploration of Motherhood
Co-curated by art historian Naman P Ahuja and Andrea Anastasio, director of the Italian Cultural Centre in India, the exhibition results from a deepening cultural partnership. On May 20, India and Italy elevated their bilateral ties to a special strategic partnership, paving the way for 2024 to be declared the Italy-India year of culture and tourism, featuring events in cinema, restoration, design, and performing arts.
Spanning over two millennia, the exhibition moves away from a single, universal story of motherhood. By mapping artworks from both peninsulas, it explores how the mother and child image has been reimagined across centuries, regions, and belief systems, revealing striking formal resonances between vastly different cultures.
Indian and Italian Highlights
Indian highlights include the enormous Gandharan sculpture of Hariti from Skarah Dheri (present-day Peshawar), paired with Kushan-period Hariti figures from Mathura and Andhra Pradesh, illustrating the spread of the mother-goddess cult across the subcontinent by the second century CE. A sixth-century Skandamata from a temple near Thaneshwar in Udaipur district represents another key work.
From Italy come representations of Mater Matuta, the ancient goddess of dawn and childbirth. These images present seated female figures holding one or more children on their laps. A similar idea appears in the Buddhist figure of Hariti, who was once a child-stealing demon but later converted by the Buddha into a benevolent guardian. Enthroned and surrounded by children, her transformed body becomes a site of redemption.
Dialogues Across Cultures
The sculpture from Skarah Dheri is especially important because it comes from Gandhara, a region shaped by exchanges between South Asia, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean world. When placed alongside representations of Mater Matuta, it reveals both similarities and differences in how societies imagine motherhood.
Returning to Botticelli's work, the relationship between mother and son unfolds with delicacy of gesture and restrained tenderness, intensifying the sacred dimension and turning motherhood into an inward, spiritual experience.
Museums and Institutions Collaborate
More than a dozen museums, institutions, and foundations from both Italy and India have loaned artefacts, including the National Museum of India in New Delhi, the Indian Museum in Kolkata, the Government Museums in Mathura and Udaipur, the TAPI Collection, the Museo Stibbert in Florence, the Museo Etrusco in Rome, and the Museo Provinciale Campano di Capua.
Plural Histories and Cultural Resilience
The exhibition asks visitors to recognize that our histories have always been plural. Co-curator Naman Ahuja explains, 'My original work titled 'One Mother Many Mother Tongues' took on a case study of the ancient cult of the goddess Hariti, which allowed me to demonstrate the nature of the huge shifts that happened in Indian culture because of the migration of people and communities 2,000 years ago. It showed how migration and localization take place simultaneously, giving rise to transcultural societies. If our antiquity and tradition themselves are so plural, surely we should not be anxious about losing our culture in the wake of similar forces today?'
Ahuja has brought attention to important traditions in Indian art. For example, while Pallava sculptures of Vishnu and Shiva are widely studied, figures such as Jyeshta, considered the antithesis of goddess Lakshmi, are rarely discussed despite many surviving examples across museums in India. He adds that the Skandamata sculptures from Thaneshwar are among the most beautiful representations of motherhood in Indian art, coming from a crucial period in the development of Shakti worship and offering new ways of understanding maternal power. The exhibition also explores traditions of tantric yoginis to expand understanding of motherhood beyond biological relationships.
Exhibition Details
Through cross-cultural imagery of mother and child, the exhibition reassures that plurality is not something to fear in the modern world; it is exactly what has enriched and sustained human culture for over two millennia. 'One Mother, Many Mother Tongues' will be on view at the Humayun's Tomb Museum from June 22 and will travel next to the National Gallery of Modern Art in Bengaluru.
