The first reference to the Madonna of the Stairs as a work by Michelangelo was in the 1568 edition of Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.

The work is an obvious homage to the stiacciato low reliefs of Donatello, as Vasari also noted, both in technique and sizes plans with millimeter thickness variations, both in iconography, starting from the scale pattern with pronounced steps and handrails foreshortened, visible for example in the Feast of Herod in Lille.

The composition of the sacred group is very original, at the same time blocked and dynamic, with the Virgin in a prophetic attitude, as she lifts her dress to feed or protect the child asleep, and generates a movement spiral thanks to the arrangement of opposite limbs.

Pronounced is the muscle of the Child and the taking of Mary, especially with large hands, thanks to the different treatment of the surfaces, make it appear vigorous simple, everyday gesture.

On the left, on the steps that give the name to the work, there are two putti just blanks in attitude dance or fight and another who, leaning on the handrail, tents, along with a fourth figure placed behind the Virgin, a drape.