HISTORY OF THE IMAGE: A very talented artist, Ms. Parsons was inspired by Raphael's (16th Century Italy) "Madonna della Sedia" or "Madonna of the Chair." This endearing image has been copied by many artists through the centuries, and in many different ways -- with halos, without halos, with John the Baptist, without John the Baptist, changes in the clothing (but always with the same head dress, upper design of the shawl, and the turned post of the chair). Ms. Parsons chose to create her pastel after Raphael's, by eliminating the second child, any halos, and by choosing pure white for the head dress, and blacks and browns where brighter colors were originally used.

Wikipedia offers the following history of the original work: The Madonna della seggiola or Madonna della sedia is a Madonna painting by the Italian renaissance artist Raphael. It depicts Mary embracing the child Christ, while the young John the Baptist devoutly watches. It is housed in the Palazzo Pitti collection in Florence. Painted during his Roman period, this Madonna does not have the strict geometrical form and linear style of his earlier Florentine treatments of the same subject. Instead, the warmer colors seem to suggest the influence of Titian and Raphael's rival Sebastiano del Piombo. Maria Montessori, Italian doctor and pioneer in pedagogy, wrote that it was her wish that the Madonna della seggiola hang in each Children's House (Montessori school) as a symbol of "humanity [St. John] rendering homage to maternity [Madonna]".[1] Ingres greatly admired Raphael and paid tribute to him by including this painting in many of his works, such in the background of as Henri IV playing with his children and Raphael and La Fornarina, on the table in front of the subject in his Portrait of monsieur Rivière, and worked into the carpet in Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne. [our thanks to Wikipedia]