Madonna col Bambino in trono

When Nélie Jacquemart bought this panel for her Paris mansion, she had no idea who had painted it. Only in the 1930s did scholars give it to Giovanni Bellini, who by around 1500 was the grand old man of Venetian painting. When the German artist Dürer came through Venice in 1506, he wrote home that Bellini, though very old, was still the best painter in the city. You can see why here. Bellini sets the Virgin's throne not in a church but out on an open terrace, a low balustrade behind her and a soft Venetian landscape stretching away beyond. Later cleaning has worn the picture thin in places, rubbing the glazes from the sky and from the red of her dress.