DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68073#0158
132
OLD WORLD MASTERS
Venetian glass. St. John the Baptist, wearing a green mantle, stands
on the right, looking downward with bended head; and St. Peter, in
orange-brown cloak with book and key, stands on the left. A very
decorative effect is derived from the palm-branches, which curve up-
wards into the top corners of the picture. A range of distant hills
appears in the background and on the carlellino on the balustrade is
the signature in script, “loannes Bellinus.”
Authority for dating the picture is derived from the fact that the
features of St. Lucy reappear in the San Zaccaria altar-piece, which
is dated 1505, and the features of St. John the Baptist occur in the
Baptism of Christ in Santa Corona, Vincenza, supposed to have been
begun in 1500.
The picture came from the Benson Collection, having been formerly
in the Wynn Ellis Collection and in the Collection of Mr. William
Graham.
The date of Giovanni Bellini’s birth is not known. He was working
with his brother, Gentile, in his father’s studio in Padua and was paint-
ing in Venice in 1464, where he produced two pictures for the Scuola
di San Girolamo. In 1475 he met Antonello da Messina, who came to
Venice, and seems to have adopted then his method of painting in oil.
In 1479, when Gentile Bellini went to Constantinople, Giovanni was
appointed to carry on his work in the Doge’s Palace ; and when Gentile
returned the two brothers worked together. Giovanni was essentially
a religious painter and his Madonnas stand among the finest ever
created. Most of his portraits are lost; but one, the Doge Loredano
(in the National Gallery, London), ranks as one of the finest of all
known portraits. This dates from 1501, painted when Giovanni was
over eighty! Giovanni died in 1516.
OLD WORLD MASTERS
Venetian glass. St. John the Baptist, wearing a green mantle, stands
on the right, looking downward with bended head; and St. Peter, in
orange-brown cloak with book and key, stands on the left. A very
decorative effect is derived from the palm-branches, which curve up-
wards into the top corners of the picture. A range of distant hills
appears in the background and on the carlellino on the balustrade is
the signature in script, “loannes Bellinus.”
Authority for dating the picture is derived from the fact that the
features of St. Lucy reappear in the San Zaccaria altar-piece, which
is dated 1505, and the features of St. John the Baptist occur in the
Baptism of Christ in Santa Corona, Vincenza, supposed to have been
begun in 1500.
The picture came from the Benson Collection, having been formerly
in the Wynn Ellis Collection and in the Collection of Mr. William
Graham.
The date of Giovanni Bellini’s birth is not known. He was working
with his brother, Gentile, in his father’s studio in Padua and was paint-
ing in Venice in 1464, where he produced two pictures for the Scuola
di San Girolamo. In 1475 he met Antonello da Messina, who came to
Venice, and seems to have adopted then his method of painting in oil.
In 1479, when Gentile Bellini went to Constantinople, Giovanni was
appointed to carry on his work in the Doge’s Palace ; and when Gentile
returned the two brothers worked together. Giovanni was essentially
a religious painter and his Madonnas stand among the finest ever
created. Most of his portraits are lost; but one, the Doge Loredano
(in the National Gallery, London), ranks as one of the finest of all
known portraits. This dates from 1501, painted when Giovanni was
over eighty! Giovanni died in 1516.