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拍品专文
David Landau, in the catalogue of the landmark exhibition on Mantegna in London and New York in 1992 declared this print as 'arguably the most beautiful print of the Italian Renaissance, and one of the most touching depictions of the Virgin and Child in the history of art' . He considered it Mantegna's 'greatest achievement in printmaking, and probably his last print' (see: Martineau, 1992, p. 219).
Much earlier, Paul Kristeller (1905-1999) suggested that the print might have been conceived at first as a secular depiction of a mother and child, an argument based on the fact that in the first state the figures are depicted without haloes. These are added in the present second state, thus making the figures unequivocally identifiable as a Virgin and Child-group. One might argue that in Mantegna's time, any depiction of a mother dressed in a wide cloak holding an small child would have been immediately understood as an image of Mary with the Christ Child, without the need for any further attributes.
Regardless of the secular or the devotional nature of the subject, it is an image of rare beauty: the tenderness of the mother cradling the baby and gently pressing its cheek against her face is counterbalanced by the monumentality of the figures and the drapery. The sorrowful face and the pose of Mary - recalling the iconography of the Pietà holding the dead Christ - become a premonition of the fate of Jesus.
To our knowledge, the subject has been offered at auction only twice in more than 30 years. Only five impressions of the first state, before the addition of the two haloes, are known today.
Much earlier, Paul Kristeller (1905-1999) suggested that the print might have been conceived at first as a secular depiction of a mother and child, an argument based on the fact that in the first state the figures are depicted without haloes. These are added in the present second state, thus making the figures unequivocally identifiable as a Virgin and Child-group. One might argue that in Mantegna's time, any depiction of a mother dressed in a wide cloak holding an small child would have been immediately understood as an image of Mary with the Christ Child, without the need for any further attributes.
Regardless of the secular or the devotional nature of the subject, it is an image of rare beauty: the tenderness of the mother cradling the baby and gently pressing its cheek against her face is counterbalanced by the monumentality of the figures and the drapery. The sorrowful face and the pose of Mary - recalling the iconography of the Pietà holding the dead Christ - become a premonition of the fate of Jesus.
To our knowledge, the subject has been offered at auction only twice in more than 30 years. Only five impressions of the first state, before the addition of the two haloes, are known today.