Pietà

Giovanni Bellini's Pietà is a panel painting executed in tempera, dated to 1455, and now held in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan. It depicts one of the most widespread subjects in Christian religious art: the Virgin Mary holding the body of Jesus after the Crucifixion. This image of a mother cradling her dead son was common in devotion, since it invited viewers to reflect on Christ's sacrifice and the grief of the Virgin.

Reference sources place the work between 1455 and 1460, which makes it one of the earliest works by Bellini, an Italian Renaissance painter. Although it is a small panel, measuring 48 by 38 centimetres, its significance lies in the fact that it served as the prototype for the long series of Pietàs Bellini produced afterwards, including the version in Bergamo. It therefore offers a useful view of how the artist first approached this scene, which centres on the two principal figures.

The tempera-on-panel technique helps explain its appearance, with matte colour and clearly defined outlines. It is worth being cautious, however. The available information does not establish with certainty the commission or the original context of the panel, so any claim about these would be speculative.

In short, the Pietà in the Poldi Pezzoli is valuable as a starting point. It shows the beginnings of a subject Bellini would return to repeatedly, and it reveals how a young painter was beginning to develop his own language within the Renaissance.

Painter

Giovanni Bellini

Date

1455

Medium

tempera, panel

Dimensions

48 × 38 cm

Museum

Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Genre

religious art

Depicts

Jesus Christ, Mary, woman, man

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