La Circoncision

Giovanni Bellini's La Circoncision (The Circumcision) of around 1500 depicts the ritual circumcision of the infant Christ eight days after his birth — a subject that in the hands of a painter of Bellini's sensibility became simultaneously a scene of intimate family ceremony and a meditation on Christ's first blood, prefiguring the Passion. Bellini's mature treatment of religious subject matter consistently found this double level of historical specificity and theological depth, grounding doctrine in human experience.

The handling should be assessed cautiously given the dating discrepancy. If the composition reflects a Bellini original, the architectural setting and figure arrangement may preserve his design even if the execution is by a workshop hand or follower.