Lot 1201 Dα

This panel displays strong stylistic parallels to a work by Giovanni Bellini based on a composition by his father Gentile, the whereabouts of which are unknown. The piece was probably intended as a pendent to a depiction of the presentation of Jesus in the temple. This subject was very popular in Venice in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, which meant that compositions were frequently copied and were also adapted in Bellini's workshop. Several copies and adaptations of the circumcision scene by pupils of Bellini are known to be kept in museums and private collections worldwide, and a list of these works has been published by F. Heinemann in: Giovanni Bellini e i Belliniani, Venice 1962, vol. 1, no. 145, p. 42-43.