‘Virgin and Child’ Painting Adorns New Forever Stamp

The U.S. Postal Service is dedicating a new Christmas stamp featuring “Virgin and Child,” an oil-on-panel painting from the first half of the 16th century by an unidentified Florentine artist known as “the Master of Scandicci Lamentation.”

The first-day-of-issue event for the Forever stamp is Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022.

The painting depicts the Virgin Mary gazing downward at the infant Christ, one of her arms holding him protectively at his waist, the other tenderly touching his arm, while the Christ child turns his head to look out of the frame to the left.

The 16th-century painting “Virgin and Child” is part of the Robert Dawson Evans Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Art director Greg Breeding designed the stamp.