Descent Into Limbo debuted years before Vantablack was announced to the public, and was instead created using a dark paint that produces the same depthless, black hole effect.
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Belonging to the collection of Barbara Piasecka Johnson and owned formerly by Sir Stephen Courtauld, this small panel constitutes without question the finest Mantegna still in private hands, rivaling anything of the artist now owned by the Metropolitan. A mini-exhibition in its honor has been assembled under the able guidance of Keith Christiansen, a curator of European paintings at the museum, who included several prints and drawings from the 15th, 18th and 19th centuries that relate directly to Mantegna's picture. Born in Padua, where he absorbed a humanist admiration for the antique, and employed by the Gonzaga court in Mantua, Mantegna achieved with such works as 'Cristo Scorto' and the illusionistic ceiling for the Camera Degli Sposi, a language of extreme dramatic effect.
Christiansen illustrates through the accompanying prints and drawings, Mantegna adapted for 'Christ's Descent Into Limbo' several earlier versions of the scene - including one by his father-in-law, Jacobo Bellini -to create a vision of exceptional theatricality.