BORDONE, Paris
(b. 1500, Treviso, d. 1571, Venice)

Madonna and Child with Saints

c. 1535
Oil on poplar panel, 296 x 179 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

In this large altarpiece the Virgin is accompanied by the plague saints: Roche, Sebastian, and Catherine of Alexandria, who are shown with the obscure early Christian papal martyr Fabianus. The influence of Titian, Bordone's teacher, as well as other earlier Venetian sources - Giorgione and the late monumental altars of Giovanni Bellini - is evident.