Virgem com o Menino abençoando

This is early Bellini, from around 1460 to 1464, when he was still working close to his father and to his brother-in-law Mantegna. What is unusual is where it hung: in the offices of a Venetian financial magistracy, the Monte Nuovissimo, at the Palazzo dei Camerlinghi near the Rialto, where officials managed the Republic's public debt. A blessing Madonna over the desks of the men who ran state finance was Venice's way of placing sober public business under holy protection. Bellini would go on to shape Venetian painting for half a century, softening the sharp outlines of his youth into the warm light his city became famous for. Here the modeling is still crisp, the Christ child standing upright and raising his small hand in blessing.