Bartolomeo Montagna, 'The Virgin and Child', probably about 1485-7

We know little about Montagna’s training but it is possible that he spent some time in Giovanni Bellini’s workshop in Venice. This composition, in which the holy figures are shown in half-length often set against a landscape background and usually behind a marble ledge, ​was pioneered by the Venetian master.

The infant Christ sits on a huge book, probably a Bible, perhaps a reference to the Christian theology that he was the fulfilment of the prophecies of the Old Testament. Mother and child each hold a cherry, a fruit which symbolised paradise – a reminder that Christ was the son of God and the gateway to heaven.

The landscape background includes common motifs in northern Italian painting, like mountains, water and buildings, which originally came from Netherlandish painting. The natural rocky archway to the left of Christ’s head reflects a fashion in the painting of the region for fantastical rock formations, and is a common feature of early works by Montagna. The Renaissance-style church with its delicate pink facade and portico facing a calm lagoon is an unusually elaborate and specific feature for this kind of devotional picture. Graceful figures approach the building, perhaps having reached it by gondola, two of which are moored nearby.

Montagna probably made this painting quite early in his career: it is close to Bellini’s images of the Virgin and Child, for example in its simple but striking forms. The broad triangle of the blue mantle and the way in which the anatomy is constructed from firmly outlined shapes may reflect the work of Antonello da Messina, who was in Venice from 1475. This is particularly clear in the Virgin’s almost doll-like fingers, which bend at the joints at an improbably straight angle. The thumb of the Virgin’s left hand is shown head-on, just as it is in Antonello’s image of Christ Blessing in our collection. Both artists used a technique called foreshortening to recreate such a view.