Holy Family with St. Elizabeth and St. John the Baptist as a Child

In the last years of his career, Mantegna painted this devotional composition, in which the Virgin holds the Christ Child at the centre, with Saint Joseph on the left and Saint Elizabeth and the young John the Baptist on the right. The backgrounds darken and architectural or anecdotal details disappear, so that nothing draws the viewer away from the figures. The approach is a deliberate reduction: the painter compresses the characters of his Presentation at the Temple into a much smaller space, creating an image meant for private prayer. Striking is the way the elderly Joseph and the little John look straight out at the observer, forging a direct bond with anyone standing before the picture. The subject held his interest so strongly that he returned to it in several copies and variants, among them one now in the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona, another at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris and a third at the Galleria Sabauda in Turin. The Dresden version, dated around 1495, shows the intimate, stripped-down character that defines the artist's late manner.

Painter

Andrea Mantegna

Date

1495

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

750 × 615 cm

Museum

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dresden

Genre

religious art

Depicts

Child Saint John, boy, Mary, woman, Christ Child

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