Francesco Bissolo, 'The Virgin and Child and Saints', probably 1505-30

The Virgin Mary and Christ Child are seated outdoors with a simple cloth of honour hanging behind them to resemble a throne. Saint Paul, identified by the book and sword he holds, stands in the position of greatest honour on the Virgin and Christ’s right-hand side. A female saint stands on their left. She is holding a palm frond, which indicates that she is a martyr, but she lacks any other attribute to identify her. The division of the composition into three zones echoes the appearance of a triptych – a traditional form of altarpiece in which the central panel of the Virgin and Child is flanked on either side by a separate panel depicting a saint.

The type of altarpiece seen here, in which the Virgin and Child are accompanied by an informal grouping of saints in a single image, is known as a sacra conversazione, meaning a ‘holy conversation’. Although the figures are not actually speaking to one another, the term implies a psychological connection between them. The sacra conversazione was developed in Venice around 1500 as an alternative to the more formal multi-panelled triptych. This type of horizontal format sacra conversazione (in which the image is wider than it is tall) is particularly associated with devotional images produced in Venice in the first half of the sixteenth century.

Bissolo’s composition is inspired by the serene Virgins of the Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini, who sit humbly in the rural landscape. Bissolo is described as a pupil of Giovanni Bellini and seems to have been a frequent collaborator, specifically employed to add donor portraits to Bellini’s Madonnas. Bissolo copied the group of the Virgin and Child in this painting from Bellini’s altarpiece of 1505 in the church of San Zaccaria, Venice; he also repeated it in other pictures. This approach of adopting and reusing successful motifs was very common in Renaissance Italy as there was an enormous demand for small devotional images of the Virgin and Child, and for altarpieces featuring them. The workshops of successful artists produced numerous copies and variants of original compositions to meet this demand. Other artists picked up popular ideas and developed variants for their own works. It was also common for patrons to specify that a painting should resemble or be based on a pre-existing example, even if it was by another artist.

There is a horizontal crack running the whole width of the panel at the level of the Virgin’s lips, and there are patches of damage to the painted flesh tones. The appearance of the painting is also affected by an old discoloured varnish.