Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

A late work by Bartolomeo Montagna, probably dating back to the first or second decade of the sixteenth century, the painting is the production of an artist who has now reached the end of his extraordinary career.

Signed by the master in the scroll at centre bottom, the painting was originally over the altar of the second chapel on the right in the church of San Bartolomeo in Vicenza. As Puppi has pointed out, it is a “rather extravagant” composition, due to the position of the figures, all kneeling, almost compressed inside an overhanging architectural structure with an apse, enhanced by a luxurious marble floor with geometric patterns. The protagonists are positioned in front of an unusual, richly decorated ark, more like a sepulchral urn than the holy ark of traditional iconography. The great skill of the master is seen again only in the absorbed and pensive expressions on the faces of the persons represented and in the realistic facial features of the male figure in contemporary clothing on the right, probably the client who ordered the work.

It has been hypothesised that Bartolomeo’s son, Benedetto Montagna, may have painted the heavy and overbearing architectural frame, richly decorated with gold motifs. Worthy of note is the detail of the unusual step in the foreground, with which the artist “seems to pay tribute, in a cold academic exercise, to the great volumetric innovation of younger masters” (Villa).