Retablo Dragan

This altarpiece is named after the man who paid for it: Giorgio Dragan, a Venetian shipowner who around 1496 commissioned Cima da Conegliano to make it for his family's altar in the church of Santa Maria della Carita. It shows the Madonna and Child enthroned among saints, calm and orderly under a painted arch, in the clear even light Cima was known for. The unusual thing is what became of the building. When Venice fell and its religious houses were reorganised, the Carita complex was turned into the city's art academy and picture gallery. So this panel, unlike almost everything around it, never really travelled. The church it was painted for became the Gallerie dell'Accademia, and the altarpiece stayed while the walls changed use around it.