Gerolamo Mocetto, 'The Massacre of the Innocents', about 1500-25
The Massacre of the Innocents
When Herod, King of Judea, found out about the birth of Jesus, who was being called ‘the king of the Jews’, he ordered the killing of all children under the age of two, an event known as the ‘massacre of the innocents’ (Matthew 2: 16).
These two pictures once formed a continuous image, but it was cut up before entering the National Gallery’s collection. The picture showing Herod overseeing the slaughter was originally to the right. The architecture – for example, the balustrade – continues from one scene to the next but the alignment is not seamless, suggesting that both paintings were cut down at the inside edge.
Paintings by Mocetto are quite rare; he is better known as an engraver. He has placed his signature on the pedestal supporting the column of Herod’s palace: HEROL/EMO / MOCETO / P.[INXIT] (‘Gerolamo Mocetto painted this’).
When Herod, King of Judea, found out about the birth of Jesus, who was being called ‘the king of the Jews’, he ordered the killing of all children under the age of two, an event known as the ‘massacre of the innocents’ (Matthew 2:16).
These two pictures once formed a continuous image, but it was cut up before entering our collection. The painting showing Herod overseeing the slaughter was originally to the right of The Massacre of the Innocents. The architecture – for example, the balustrade – continues from one scene to the next but the alignment is not seamless, suggesting that both paintings were cut down at the inside edge.
Paintings by Mocetto are quite rare; he is better known as an engraver. When the pictures were purchased by the National Gallery in 1888, they were considered particularly worthwhile because they are signed on the pedestal that supports the column of Herod’s palace: HEROL/EMO / MOCETO / P.[INXIT] (‘Gerolamo Mocetto painted this’). The Gallery’s director, who made the purchases, valued them because Mocetto was working in the Veneto at around the same time as Giovanni Bellini, the most famous Venetian painter of the Early Renaissance. The panels however show a very close affinity to the work of Bellini’s friend and rival, Mantegna; Mocetto even copied certain figures from Mantegna’s engravings.
In the eighteenth century, the pictures belonged to the British consul at Venice, John Strange. They were also included in a well-known eighteenth-century book on art history by Seroux d'Agincourt, a French art historian.
