Sacra Famiglia con san Giovannino

By 1500, Andrea Mantegna had been court painter to the Gonzaga rulers of Mantua for more than 30 years, and he was nearing 70. This small devotional picture belongs to that late stretch, when he often worked in thin glue tempera on fine canvas rather than on wooden panel, cheaper and light enough to roll and carry. Time has not been kind to it, and its worn surface is part of why scholars still argue over how much of it is his own hand. Look at the infant John the Baptist, who points across to the child Christ. The scroll unwinding around John's leg once carried the words he spoke at the baptism, Ecce Agnus Dei, behold the Lamb of God.