Five centuries ago, Francesco d’Ubertino Verdi (1494–1557), the Italian Renaissance painter known as Bachiacca, proved himself to be a versatile and popular Florentine artist. Today, his work still vividly evokes the timeless traditions of Christmas.


This stamp features a detail of Bachiacca’s oil-and-gold-on-panel painting “Madonna and Child,” which dates from the early 1520s, showing the Christ child clutching a bouquet of jasmine, a symbol of divine love, alongside the Virgin Mary’s profile, left shoulder and right hand.


This painting is part of the Jack and Belle Linsky Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.