[1][2] Struth became interested by the work of the Italian painter Giovanni Bellini, due to his conexion to the Scottish art historian Giles Robertson, who published a monograph on him, in 1968, and who had been the subject of two of his portraits.
Struth took interest in the current painting, the San Zaccaria Altarpiece or Sacra Conversazione, after this book and also after visiting Venice, in 1990.
[3] The current photograph focus in particular in the San Zaccaria Altarpiece, seen at the center of the composition, and surrounded by several other religious themed paintings in the church where it is located.
The altarpiece depicting the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child, surrounded by saints, is notable for his use of trompe l'oeil, which stands out in Struth's photograph.
[4][5] The Metropolitan Museum of Art website states: "Struth's picture unifies the timeless and the ephemeral, making the ideal and the real two perspectives on the same theme.