Thank you for this wonderful thread. I particularly enjoy the first picture because it depicts Mary in a luxurious setting, wearing silks and velvet and the Infant wearing jewelry. It’s all so unlike any image I’ve had of her.
It is especially clear in the iconography of Jesus, but we note that in Mary as well. There is suffering Christ and there is Christ in glory, and likewise there is Mary the handmaid of the Lord and Mary Queen of Heaven. Suffering and triumph intertwine in Christian theology and images of suffering and triumph intertwine in Christian art.
The Late Renaissance was the time when it seemed to us that the Church has triumphed, or is close to triumph. The radiant with happiness smiling Madonna was the face of the Church. Protestantism was the enemy of that from the beginning.