Carlo Crivelli was an Italian Renessissance painter of conservative Late Gothic decorative sensibility. He spent his early years in the Veneto. He left the Veneto by 1458 and spent most of the remainder of his career in the March of Ancona, where he developed a distinctive personal style that contrasts with that of his Venetian contemporary Giovanni Bellini.
Unlike the naturalistic trends arising in Florence during his lifetime, Crivelli's style continues to represent the courtly International Gothic sensibility. His urban settings are jewel-like and full of elaborate allegorical detail. Commissioned by the Franciscans and Dominicans of Ascoli, Crivelli's work is exclusively religious in nature.
His paintings consist largely of Madonna and Child images, Pietà, and the altarpieces known as polyptychs that were increasingly unfashionable. Often filled with images of suffering, such as gaping wounds in Christ's hands and side and the mouths of mourners twisted in agony, Crivelli's work fulfills the spiritual needs of his patrons. Carlo Crivelli died in the Marche (probably Ascoli Piceno) around 1495. Vitterio Crivelli, with whom he occasionally collaborated, was his younger brother.