[Footnote 1:  In a famous Pieta by Raphael, engraved by Marc Antonio, the Virgin, standing by the dead form of her Son, has the right arm apparently bare; in the repetition of the subject it is clothed with a full sleeve, the impropriety being corrected.  The first is, however, the most perfect and most precious as a work of art.—­Bartsch, xiv. 34, 35.]

In the historical pictures, her dress is very simple; but in those devotional figures which represent her as queen of heaven, she wears a splendid crown, sometimes of jewels interwoven with lilies and roses.  The crown is often the sovereign crown of the country in which the picture is placed:  thus, in the Papal States, she often wears the triple tiara:  in Austria, the imperial diadem.  Her blue tunic is richly embroidered with gold and gems, or lined with ermine, or stuff of various colours, in accordance with a text of Scripture:  “The King’s daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold.  She shall be brought unto the King in a vesture of needlework.”  (Ps. xlv. 13.) In the Immaculate Conception, and in the Assumption, her tunic should be plain white, or white spangled with golden stars.  In the subjects relating to the Passion, and after the Crucifixion, the dress of the Virgin should be violet or gray.  These proprieties, however, are not always attended to.

In the early pictures which represent her as nursing the divine Infant (the subject called the Vergine Lattante), the utmost care is taken to veil the bust as much as possible.  In the Spanish school the most vigilant censorship was exercised over all sacred pictures, and, with regard to the figures of the Virgin, the utmost decorum was required.  “What,” says Pacheco, “can be more foreign to the respect which we owe to our Lady the Virgin, than to paint her sitting down with one of her knees placed over the other, and often with her sacred feet uncovered and naked?  Let thanks be given to the Holy Inquisition, which commands that this liberty should be corrected.”  For this reason, perhaps, we seldom see the feet of the Virgin in Spanish pictures.[1] Carducho speaks more particularly on the impropriety of painting the Virgin unshod, “since it is manifest that, our Lady was in the habit of wearing shoes, as is proved by the much venerated relic of one of them from her divine feet at Burgos.”

[Footnote 1:  Or in any of the old pictures till the seventeenth century “Tandis que Dieu est toujours montre pieds nus, lui qui est descendu a terre et a pris notre humanite, Marie au contraire est constamment representee les pieds perdus dans les plis trainants, nombreux et legers de sa robe virginale; elle, qui est elevee au dessus de la terre et rapprochee de Dieu par sa purete.  Dieu montre par ses pieds nus qu’il a pris le corps de l’homme; Marie fait comprendre en les cachant qu’elle participe de la spiritualite de Dieu.”]

The Child in her arms is always, in the Greek and early pictures, clothed in a little tunic, generally white.  In the fifteenth century he first appears partly, and then wholly, undraped.  Joseph, as the earthly sposo, wears the saffron-coloured mantle over a gray tunic.  In the later schools of art these significant colours are often varied, and sometimes wholly dispensed with.