The Circumcision
by GAROFALO, Oil on wood, 37 x 50 cm
In its use of strong colours and miniaturist detail, the work is typical of the Ferrarese High Renaissance. The panel is thought to have formed the central section of the predella for Garofalo’s altarpiece of the Massacre of the Innocents painted in August 1519 for the church of San Francesco in Ferrara and now in the city’s Pinacoteca Nazionale. As early as 1632 the Louvre picture is known to have been removed from the Ferrara altarpiece and substituted by a copy.