The Holy Family with Saint Mary Magdalen
From 1460 Mantegna worked at Mantua as court artist to the Gonzaga family. He is best known for the altarpieces and secular works he painted for them, but he also painted a limited number of extraordinary small pictures for private devotion. Like the present picture, these were often painted in distemper (pigment with animal glue as a medium) on a fine cotton support, and they are delicate in execution.
This painting dates from the last decade of Mantegna's career. Its composition is based on classical funerary reliefs. It may have hung in the church of the Spedale degli Incurabili in Venice in the seventeenth century.
Michelangelo
1504
