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The Alms of St Anthony
1542
Oil on wood, 332 x 235 cm
Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice

by Lorenzo Lotto - Italian painter, Venetian school (b. ca. 1480, Venezia, d. 1556, Loreto)

The scarlet curtain is drawn aside to reveal a sacred scene with a social and historical content. The confusion of indiscriminate need meets the discriminating order of assistance. The hierarchical configuration of the altarpiece leaves the viewer on the lower plane, with the noisy, beseeching poor, to look enviously up at the rich carpet.


16th century Anatolian Turkish rug