Circumcision of Jesus

This is a small panel, and for most of its life it stood on its own. Mantegna painted it around 1460, probably for the Gonzaga rulers of Mantua, where he had just become court artist. Only in 1827 was it joined to two other panels of his and framed as a triptych, though scholars doubt the three were ever meant to hang together. He sets the circumcision of the infant Christ inside a temple of coloured marble so crisp it looks carved rather than painted. Above the figures he added gilded reliefs of Old Testament scenes, Moses among them, placed there to echo the moment below. Mantegna was still in his early thirties, already handling stone, gold and perspective with the eye of a sculptor.