BELLINI, Giovanni
(b. ca. 1426, Venezia, d. 1516, Venezia)

Virgin and Child

1485-88
Oil on canvas, 62 x 47 cm
Burrell Collection, Glasgow

Bellini's mastery of the new oil painting technique is evident in The Virgin and Child painted about 1485-88. The theme of the Virgin and Child represented in half length behind a marble ledge was one particularly favoured by Bellini, and he painted innumerable versions of it throughout his long life.

The Virgin and Child would have been intended for private devotion in the home, as more intimate and domestic counterparts to the large-scale sacred images that decorated the altars of Venetian churches.