A Transfiguração de Cristo

This is early Lotto, painted between 1510 and 1512 for a church in Recanati, a hill town in the Marches, years before he made his name in Bergamo and Venice. It shows the Gospel scene on Mount Tabor, where Christ rises transfigured in light between the prophets Moses and Elijah, while three apostles reel on the ground below, shielding their eyes. Lotto gives the moment a nervous, almost restless energy, with sharp gestures and bright, clashing colour. It belongs to an experimental phase he would drop after moving to Bergamo in 1513. Part of its lower strip, showing Christ leading the apostles up the mountain, was separated long ago and now hangs in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.