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Date : between 1500 and 1505
Material : Tempera on canvas
Acquisition : (1933)
| Scenes from the Life of Christ
Item 23 on 29
European Painting
Painting
Area related
Florence (Italy)
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| Description |  |
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Although Perugino is best known as the respected teacher if Raphael (1483-1520), he was, in his day, the leading painter in Perugia; he also received important commissions in Rome, Florence, and elsewhere in Italy. His style, marked by the rational organization if space and a serenity of pose and attitude, became widely influential.
These four panels, together with one depicting the Resurrection (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), once constituted a "predella"-a horizontal sequence of small pictures positioned at the base of a large altarpiece. It is thought that the ensemble was made for a church in a or near Florence, where Perugino maintained a studio from 1487 to 1511.
The scenes are part of the Biblical narrative if Christ's life : the "Adoration" depicts the arrival of shepherds to render homage to the newborn Jesus; the "Baptism" shows Christ being anointed by Saint John the Baptist; the "Woman of Samaria" portrays her encounter with Jesus at the well of the patriarch Jacob; and "Noli me Tangere" recounts the resurrected Christ's appearance outside his empty tomb, where he admonishes Mary Magdalene not to touch him.
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