Thronende Madonna, das schlafende Christuskind anbetend

Around 1475 Giovanni Bellini was the leading painter in Venice, but this early panel still carries the sharp, sculptural edge he took from two men working in nearby Padua: his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna, and the carved figures Donatello had left in the city. Mary does not play with her son. She folds her hands and looks down at him asleep, and the ledge he lies on is shaped like an altar. To a fifteenth-century worshipper the meaning was quiet but clear. The sleeping child is foretelling his own death, his small body standing in for the bread of the Mass. Bellini worked here in tempera, before the oil technique that would later make Venetian colour famous.