Christus der Erlöser

Mantegna painted this small image of Christ in 1493, while he was court painter to the Gonzaga family who ruled Mantua. It was made for private devotion, the kind of intimate picture a wealthy patron would keep for prayer rather than hang in a church. Christ is shown close up, raising a hand in blessing, painted in tempera on canvas at a time when most painters still worked on wooden panels, and Mantegna was among those helping to make canvas ordinary. It now lives in the small northern Italian town of Correggio, in a civic museum that keeps it beside a work by the painter Correggio, who was born there and took his name from the place.