The study of a lost work of Carpaccio Few thoughts about the "Sacra Conversazione" in Venice

The present article presents a new photograph of a lost painting, formerly in Berlin and destroyed in 1945, during the Second World War. The photo, found in the Photo Archive of the Getty Research Institute, allows us for the first time to see the painting in colour and to rethink about its chronology, which is usually set by scholars around 1510. The study of the birth and development of the Sacra Conversazione in Venice, in fact, shows the central role, played by Carpaccio during the late 1480s. Indeed, along with Giovanni Bellini, Vittore was actively involved in the transition from the vertical to the horizontal size for the iconography of the Madonna with child and saints, which was then very adopted inside Bellini's workshop.