Saint Anne with the Virgin and Child

The Italian name for this kind of group is Sant'Anna Metterza, Saint Anne placed third, a way of counting the generations. Anne holds her daughter Mary, and Mary holds the Christ Child, three figures carved as one family. Groups like this multiplied in the 15th century, as devotion to Anne, the grandmother of Christ, grew across Europe. This one stood in her own church in Verona, Sant'Anna, before it came to the museum.

The museum counts it among Giovanni Zebellana's late works, close in style to the Lamentation in the church of Santa Toscana, and singles out Anne herself, severe and deeply human. The original colour has gone from the clothes. It survives only on the skin, and there the painting is fine enough to show pale blue veins running across the backs of the hands.