Darbringung im Tempel

Mantegna painted this Presentation in the Temple around 1454, near the time he married Nicolosia Bellini, sister of the painter Giovanni Bellini, joining himself to the most important workshop family in Venice. The subject is the infant Christ brought to the temple, but two figures at the edges seem to be portraits. The man looking out at the far right is thought to be Mantegna himself, and the woman on the left his new wife. The whole scene is boxed by a hard stone frame painted into the picture, so the holy figures press right up against it and lean into our space. Giovanni Bellini later made his own version of this composition, tracing the central figures from his brother-in-law's design.