DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62360#0164
LATER WORKS
89
bear evidence of being painted for his own pleasure, by
a man in constant and intimate relation with his model.
Nothing more full of sympathy for child-life can
well be conceived, than the sleeping infant of the
Poldi-Pezzoli Gallery (Plate 28) ; nor more tender than
the wistful mother, bending her head over its round
cheeks. No longer hieratic, as in the previous group,
both have abdicated their right to divinity, and
become simply human ; but the charm is not less than
in the radiant and stately altar-pieces of the past. Of
the same date, and obviously a study from the same
mother, as she sat on a low stool at his feet, bending
over her child, is the engraving (Bartsch, 8), which
we shall presently consider.
Equally true to Nature is the sleeping child in
Herr Simon’s collection, lapped in the brocade folds
of its mother’s mantle, as in a cradle. She bends her
grave face over him, one hand supporting his head,
pressing her cheek upon it, the other round his swathed
body. It is the same child, and the face of the Virgin
we have seen once before, as she kneels with bent head
at the feet of the Christ-child in the Hortus Inclusus.
This painting is one of the most sympathetic and
technically perfect of Mantegna’s later style, with its
exquisite tenderness of feeling, and the marvellous
truth with which the unconscious sleep of infancy is
rendered.
Lastly, in the Bergamo canvas (Plate 29) we see again
the same child, but this time no longer placidly sleeping.
He is painted under the stress of some childish malady,
with puckered face, as though about to cry. It is a study
of the same date as Herr Simon’s, a little later than the
89
bear evidence of being painted for his own pleasure, by
a man in constant and intimate relation with his model.
Nothing more full of sympathy for child-life can
well be conceived, than the sleeping infant of the
Poldi-Pezzoli Gallery (Plate 28) ; nor more tender than
the wistful mother, bending her head over its round
cheeks. No longer hieratic, as in the previous group,
both have abdicated their right to divinity, and
become simply human ; but the charm is not less than
in the radiant and stately altar-pieces of the past. Of
the same date, and obviously a study from the same
mother, as she sat on a low stool at his feet, bending
over her child, is the engraving (Bartsch, 8), which
we shall presently consider.
Equally true to Nature is the sleeping child in
Herr Simon’s collection, lapped in the brocade folds
of its mother’s mantle, as in a cradle. She bends her
grave face over him, one hand supporting his head,
pressing her cheek upon it, the other round his swathed
body. It is the same child, and the face of the Virgin
we have seen once before, as she kneels with bent head
at the feet of the Christ-child in the Hortus Inclusus.
This painting is one of the most sympathetic and
technically perfect of Mantegna’s later style, with its
exquisite tenderness of feeling, and the marvellous
truth with which the unconscious sleep of infancy is
rendered.
Lastly, in the Bergamo canvas (Plate 29) we see again
the same child, but this time no longer placidly sleeping.
He is painted under the stress of some childish malady,
with puckered face, as though about to cry. It is a study
of the same date as Herr Simon’s, a little later than the