Florentine Madonna and Child 2016

Celebrate Christmas with the Florentine Madonna and Child Forever stamp. The design features a detail from Madonna and Child, a tempera-on-panel painting created around 1470 by an anonymous Florentine artist known as “a Follower of Fra Filippo Lippi and Pesellino.” The serene Renaissance image shows the haloed Virgin Mary gently holding the Christ Child against a richly decorated floral background. The original painting belongs to the Widener Collection at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. William J. Gicker served as art director and stamp designer. Issued in 2016 in double-sided booklets of 20, this Forever stamp is always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail one-ounce rate.