![\"Christmas](\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2022\/10\/ChristmasForeverStamp-credit-USPS-350x197.png\")
Art historians have long wondered about the artist\u2019s identity and have sometimes associated the painting and similar paintings with the names of numerous 16th-century-figures. Now, scholars attribute this \u201cVirgin and Child\u201d to a Florentine artist who\u2019s been known since the late 1960s as the Master of Scandicci Lamentation. Scholars based the name on similarities in style seen in a painting called \u201cThe Lamentation on the Dead Christ,\u201d created for a church in the town of Scandicci, near Florence.<\/p>\n
The contemporaries of Italian Renaissance artists often inspired them to imitate their compositions. Scholars think that the artist based the poses of the Virgin Mary and Christ child in this painting on the two central figures in the \u201cMadonna of the Baldacchino.\u201d This painting was an unfinished altarpiece made by the painter Raphael for a church in Florence between 1506 and 1508.<\/p>\n
The \u201cVirgin and Child\u201d painting is in the Robert Dawson Evans Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. Art director Greg Breeding designed the stamp. The U.S. Postal Service will sell the Virgin and Child stamp in booklets of 20 for $12.<\/p>\n
If this stamp doesn\u2019t fit your holiday letters, fret not. The USPS also introduced another\u00a0holiday stamp\u00a0in September, named Holiday Elves, which features multiple stamp designs. Other stamps the postal service has announced or teased include a James Webb Space Telescope stamp, a Pony Cars stamp that features a 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 302 and other designs, an elephant-themed stamp, a National Marine Sanctuaries stamp, and Buzz Lightyear-themed Go Beyond stamp.<\/p>\n
With Christmas coming up in a few months, now is the time to start thinking about your Christmas cards. This new forever stamp is perfect for showing your love for Christ. News of the stamps is being shared with the hashtag #VirginandChildStamps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Although Christmas is two months away, the U.S. Postal Service wants you to know it already has a holiday stamp ready for letter senders. USPS released the \u201cVirgin and Child\u201d Christmas forever stamp during a dedication ceremony at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston late last month. U.S. Postal Service Organization Development Vice President…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":4459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,140],"tags":[280,1510,1507],"class_list":["post-4453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-church","tag-christmas","tag-forever-stamp","tag-usps"],"yoast_head":"\n