Mantegna and Bellini

Comprising major loans of paintings, drawings, and sculpture, ‘Mantegna and Bellini’ compares the work of two pre-eminent artists who also happened to be related by marriage.

Central to the exhibition are two historic juxtapositions of Mantegna’s and Bellini’sdepictions of ‘The Agony in the Garden’, and two versions of ‘The Presentation to the Temple’ – Mantegna’s from the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin and Bellini’s from the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice.

In 1460, Mantegna moved to Mantua where he occupied the post of court painter to the ruling Gonzaga family until his death in 1506. Bellini, who died 10 years later, spent his entire career in Republican Venice. Despite the distance between them, their work provides evidence of their continuing creative artistic exchange for the rest of their long lives.

Exhibition organised by the National Gallery and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in collaboration with the British Museum.