Virgin and Child

Andrea Mantegna spent most of his career as court painter to the Gonzaga family in Mantua, filling grand halls with classical scenes. This is the opposite kind of work, small and quiet, made for one person to pray in front of at home. He painted it late in the 15th century, on a very fine canvas without any underdrawing, working almost as if drawing straight in paint. The mother presses her cheek against her sleeping baby, a tender pose Mantegna borrowed from a marble relief by the sculptor Donatello. Her face is not happy though. It is pensive, even sad, and the pale cloth wrapped around the child looks ahead to the shroud he will one day be buried in.