Giovanni BelliniItalian, 1430–1516Madonna del Prato
Can I see it?
Unknown
Where is “Madonna del Prato” now? Collection: The National Gallery, London. Unknown.
London, United Kingdom
The owner is known; whether it is on view today is not.
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the painting
Madonna del Prato (Madonna of the Meadow) is a 1505 painting of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child by the Italian Renaissance painter Giovanni Bellini, now in the National Gallery in London. Originally painted as oil and egg tempera on wood, it was transferred to canvas in 1949, with damage in places.
It presents a medieval iconography of the Virgin of humility seated before a full and shining rural panorama, with both the devotional aspect and the landscape aspect given equal prominence. Full of small details of everyday life, this landscape contributes to the intimate and familiar tone of the two figures. The raven in the tree possibly symbolises death. The figures' poses invite meditation on Jesus's death and passion, recalling Pietà compositions with the dead adult Jesus in his mother's lap.
Details
- Accession number
- NG599
In the catalog
Sources
- Wikidata
- Image: The National Gallery — Giovanni Bellini · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
In the life of Giovanni Bellini
The whole life1498
The death of his wife Ginevra
Judging by the will of Bellini's son, Ginevra died in 1498. The archives also hold the will of a certain Maria, who calls herself the widow of the painter Giovanni Bellini; some scholars conclude from it that he married a second time.
1501–1505
Isabella Gonzaga and commissions without paintings
In 1501–04 the Marchioness of Mantua, Isabella Gonzaga (also known as Isabella d'Este), has great difficulty obtaining from Bellini a painting of the Madonna and Saints, for which she has already paid in advance (it is now lost). In 1505 she tries through Pietro Bembo to commission another, of secular or mythological content; its subject and fate are unknown.
1506
Meeting Dürer in Venice
On Albrecht Dürer's second visit to Venice he calls Bellini very old but still the best in painting, and full of courtesy toward foreign fellow painters. In a letter to Pirckheimer Dürer reports that Bellini praised him before many gentlemen and came himself to ask for a work, promising to pay well.
1507
The death of his brother Gentile
After Gentile's death Giovanni inherits their father Jacopo's sketchbook, on condition that he finish a picture his brother left incomplete. Marin Sanudo notes that Gentile's brother Zuan Belin remains, the most excellent painter in Italy.
