Madonna and Child with St. Peter and St. Sebastian

Saint Sebastian, on the right, stuck through with arrows, was the saint Venetians turned to against plague, and Bellini painted him often in a city that lived with the fear of it. Here he stands with Saint Peter beside the Virgin and Child in the quiet, wordless grouping Venetians called a sacra conversazione, holy figures sharing one space with no story passing between them. What Bellini brings to it is light. The forms are soft, the colours deep and warm, the whole scene lit as if by late afternoon rather than by anything divine. He made the picture in Venice around 1487. The Louvre bought it in 1859, and it has hung in Paris ever since.