[3] This kind of serene and harmonious composition was held in very high regard by Renaissance patrons and earned Raphael a commission to paint a fresco for the Pope at the Vatican stanze in Rome.

[a] In 1983, the Chief Conservator for Paintings at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna removed the retouchings and varnish that deformed the Madonna of the Meadow.

[1] Restoration revealed that this painting's structure is similar to that of the Small Cowper Madonna, and consists of translucent oil glazes, opaque underpaint and gesso ground.

[1] In the Madonna of the Meadow, the blue robe is disfigured by a wide craquelure provoked by the uneven drying of the oil layers.

[1] Additionally, the painting is characterized by a great depth of shadows and a subtle interplay of the cool and warm tones that model the flesh.