c. 1507/Oil on panel
50.0 x 35.0 cm
Permanent Exhibition: From the Renaissance to the 20th Century—500 Years of Western Paintings
Exhibition period:01 11, 2025 (SAT)~03 23, 2025 (SUN)
Permanent Exhibition Gallery 2 in the New Wingof Tokyo Fuji Art Museum
Permanent Exhibition: From the Renaissance to the 20th Century – 500 Years of Western Paintings
Exhibition period: 04 12, 2025 (SAT)~06 22, 2025 (SUN)
Permanent Exhibition Gallery 2 in the New Wing of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum
SUMMARY
Known as the "Painter of Madonna," the master Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini painted a number of religious paintings themed with "Virgin and Child" ranging from large altarpieces to small pieces for family worship. The painter also made many portraits like this one. Although these portraits he painted are a style of figure paintings with specific models, they reflect the Venice’s atmosphere of the time, and also fully convey the community and historical background where Giovanni Bellini belonged to. In that sense, it can be said that this work has an essential significance and characteristics of portraiture. This portrait depicts the bust, in three-quarter profile to right, of a procurator who is dressed in formal attire, with a black hat, navy-blue damask jacket and a red ribbon that indicates his official position. Probably in the 1480s Bellini learned of the works of Hans Memling and other painters, mastered the style of bust paintings which depicted a person’s chest or upper parts of body against a sky or plain background, and consequently created small beautiful paintings with classical tranquility. Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan (National Gallery, London), which was painted in around 1501, and his other portraits of a man are typical examples of this style. This work was created several years after the productions of those portraits, and right after Bellini completed one of his best altarpieces, San Zaccaria Altarpiece. As Albrecht Dürer wrote of Bellini in a letter around that time, “He is very old, and still he is the best painter of them all,” this work is such a fine painting that exhibits the skillful brushworks of the great master who still retained youthful vigor even after 75 years old.
ARTIST
Giovanni Bellini
c. 1430-1516
List of artworks by the same artist
INFORMATION

1 12, 2019 (Sat.)~5 4 (Sat.)
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Shanghai PowerLong Museum (Shanghai, China)
10 23, 2018 (Tue.)~12 23 (Sun.)
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tsinghua University Art Museum (Beijing, China)
10 1, 2000 (Sun.)~12 3 (Sun.)
Masterpieces of Western Paintings from the Renaissance to the 20th Century National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (Taipei, Taiwan)
10 14, 1997 (Tue.)~11 30 (Sun.)
Masterpieces of Western Oil Painting from the TFAM Collection Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong, China)
10 16, 1992 (Fri.)~11 5 (Thu.)
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting: The Paintings in 20th Century from the Renaissance to Impressionism China Art Gallery (Beijing, China)
11 3, 1990 (Sat.)~12 2 (Sun.)
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting Ho-Am Art Museum (Yongin-gun, Kyunggi-do, South Korea)
9 22, 1990 (Sat.)~10 21 (Sun.)
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting Ho-Am Gallery (Seoul, South Korea)
Provenance: King Wilhelm I of Wüttemberg Stuttgart Gallery, 1864 With Wildenstein, Paris, 1926 Ernest Rosenfeld, New York Mrs. Derek Fitzgerald Exhibited: Venice, Doge’s Palace, Giovanni Bellini, 1949, no.110 Kings Lynn, Guildhall of St. George, Exhibition of Venetian Pictures , 1959, no.3 London, Royal Academy, Itarian Art Museum, Masterpieces of European Oil Paintings,1990
Literature: Lange, Catalog des Gemälde Sammlung Stuttgart,1907, p.56 Baron von Hadeln, in Burlington Magazine, vol.LI, 1927, p.316, illus. p.317 George Gronau, Giovanni Bellini, Klassiker der kunst, 1930, p.216, no.164 Lionello Vonturi, Italian Paintings in America, 1933, vol. Ⅱ,pl.399 Raimond van Marle, the Development of the Itarian Shools of Painting, 1935, vol.ⅩⅤⅡ, p.317 C.Gamba, Giovanni Bellini, 1937, p.183 Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Venetian Shool, 1957 , vol.Ⅰ, p.32 Fritz Heinemann, Giovanni Bellini e i Belliiani, 1963, vol. Ⅰ, p.79, no291, illus. vol.Ⅱ, illus. no.132, circa 1507 Catalogue of Masterpiece of Europin Oil Paintings ,Samsung Samsung Foundaion of Aer & Culture,1990,pl,no.2
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