Die Einführung des Kybelekults in Rom

Mantegna painted this in 1505, near the very end of his life, and it does not look like a painting at all. The figures are done in grey monochrome to imitate a carved stone relief, set against panels of coloured marble, so the whole thing reads as sculpture pretending to be paint. A Venetian cardinal ordered it for his brother's private study, to honour an ancestor the family claimed among the ancient Romans. The scene is from 204 BC, when Rome brought the cult of the goddess Cybele into the city and chose one man as the worthiest Roman to receive her. Mantegna meant it to head a series of several such canvases. He finished only this one before he died in 1506.