Madonna and Child Blessing

This is the work of the father of a famous family. Jacopo Bellini trained his sons Giovanni and Gentile, and Venetian painting for the next century would run largely through them. Made around 1450 in tempera, the panel already carries a detail his son Giovanni would make his own, a low stone parapet across the front, angled so it seems to belong to our space rather than the picture's, with the Child set on it as if just within reach. The Virgin steadies him as he raises a hand in blessing. The softness of the infant's face points the same way, toward the tenderer, more human holy figures the younger Bellini would spend his life painting. Where the panel first hung is uncertain, whether in the Doge's palace or a religious confraternity out on the island of Murano.