Triptych of the Madonna

Giovanni Bellini's Triptych of the Madonna, painted around 1464 and now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice, is an early triptych format work showing the Virgin and Child flanked by saints. The work dates to Bellini's early period when the compartmentalized triptych format was giving way to the unified sacra conversazione. Bellini would be instrumental in this transition, eventually abandoning the separated panel format for his revolutionary unified altar compositions.

The early triptych displays Bellini's sharp, linear style of the 1460s, with firm drawing and angular modeling characteristic of his Paduan phase, though the warm color sense anticipates his later atmospheric innovations.