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| Giovanni Francesco da Rimini Virgin and Child ca. 1450-60 tempera and oil on panel Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
Giovanni Francesco da Rimini (ca. 1420-1470) followed the conservative northern Italian tradition of painting that was only slightly affected by the illusionistic innovations of mid-century. A work of this small size and intimacy was most likely intended for personal devotions in the home. Here the focus is on the Christ child, whose eyes are rapturously raised to heaven, as if in contemplation of his future Passion. As an encouragement to the viewer, the neckline of the Virgin's robe is inscribed with the partially visible prayer text of the Ave Maria.
– based on curator's notes at the Walters Art Museum
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| Antonello da Messina The Virgin Reading ca. 1460-62 tempera and oil on panel Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
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| Giovanni Bellini Portrait of a young Venetian ca. 1480 tempera on panel Brooklyn Museum |
Sitting in the occhio e mezzo (eye-and-a-half) pose, this unidentified young man wears his hair in the Venetian shoulder-length style (zazzera). His dark cloak and berretto, or cap, and the tenebrous background emphasize his facial features – pale skin, aquiline nose, and full lips – as well as his auburn hair. Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516) places the figure behind a parapet, a compositional device originally derived from Flemish portrait traditions.
– based on curator's notes at the Brooklyn Museum
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| Pietro Perugino St Jerome in Penitence ca. 1480-85 tempera on canvas, mounted on panel Royal Collection, Great Britain |
This devotional painting by Pietro Perugino (1446-1523) was purchased by Queen Victoria and presented to Prince Albert on his birthday in 1846. It shows St. Jerome kneeling, half-turned, and looking to the right. He may once have been gazing at a crucifix, now lost. Before Queen Victoria acquired the picture the fine linen-like canvas was cut, probably on all sides, and laid on panel. Perugino's exceptionally high reputation among the Victorians rested on his link with Raphael, who was thought to have been trained by him.
– based on curator's notes at the Royal Collection
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| Cosmè Tura Adoration of the Magi ca. 1480 tempera on panel Harvard Art Museums |
Cosm̬ Tura (1430-1495) was an official court painter to the ruling Este family and its circle in Ferrara. Although this work appears to be an independent circular panel, or tondo, several factors suggest otherwise. First, the painting is smaller than most late fifteenth-century tondos and commemorative birth salvers. Second, it is closely linked to two identically shaped paintings Рthe Circumcision and the Flight into Egypt Рwhich probably once belonged to a large pictorial ensemble. Some scholars have suggested that all were part of a predella narrative for the artist's Roverella Altarpiece, commissioned for the church of San Giorgio in Ferrara, but the images do not correspond with an early description of that work.
– based on curator's notes at the Harvard Art Museums
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| Cosimo Rosselli Lamentation ca. 1480-90 tempera on panel Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Matteo di Giovanni St Jerome in his study 1482 tempera and oil on panel Harvard Art Museums |
Guilds played an important role in commissioning art in Renaissance Italy. Despite its religious subject, this painting by Matteo di Giovanni (ca. 1428-1495) was never intended to be an altarpiece. In September 1482, Siena's Arte dei Notae, or notaries' guild, installed this large painting in a reception room in its headquarters, and in the months that followed, payment was made to other artists for the monumental frame (no longer extant). Jerome is not shown as a penitent in the desert, as is more common, but as a humanist scholar studying at his desk, mirroring the activity and pose of the notaries at work nearby in the guild office.
– based on curator's notes at the Harvard Art Museums
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| Bernardino Butinone Flight into Egypt ca, 1485 tempera on panel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Bernardino Butinone Descent from the Cross ca. 1485 tempera on panel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Domenico Ghirlandaio after Hans Memling Man of Sorrows ca. 1490 tempera on panel Philadelphia Museum of Art |
Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), who worked in Florence, based his Man of Sorrows on a painting by his contemporary Hans Memling (1430-1494). Ghirlandaio is known to have particularly appreciated the Netherlandish artist's work, which Italian merchants brought to Florence from Memling's native Bruges. The Florentine painter made copies of a number of northern masterpieces, and while he successfully imitated the effects of Netherlandish oil painting, he did so in the traditional Italian medium of egg tempera.
– based on curator's notes at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
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| Pietro di Francesco degli Orioli Sulpicia ca. 1493-95 tempera and oil on panel Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
Sulpicia was chosen in the 3rd century BC from among a hundred women in Rome as the most worthy to dedicate a statue to the goddess Venus Verticordia, protector of women. Before an imaginary view of the city of Rome, Sulpicia holds a model of the temple of the goddess. The painting is one of eight surviving panels by Pietro di Francesco degli Orioli (1458-1496) which depict Roman men and women exemplifying virtuous behavior. The series was probably made to celebrate the marriage in 1493 of Silvio di Bartolomeo Piccolomini (a relative of Pope Pius II) and was intended to provide moral examples for the bridal couple. The artist's fascination with antiquity is visible not only in the subject matter, but also in the classicizing linear gracefulness of the human form and the ornament of the base.
– based on curator's notes at the Walters Art Museum
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| Sandro Botticelli Virgin and Child with an Angel ca. 1475-85 tempera on panel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Sandro Botticelli Virgin and Child with Two Angels ca. 1485-95 tempera on panel Art Institute of Chicago |
The works of Sandro Botticelli (1444/45-1510) mark the culmination of a mystical religious tradition in the art of early Renaissance Florence, from the paintings of Lorenzo Monaco and Fra Angelico through those of Fra Filippo Lippi, Botticelli's teacher. In this lyrical late work by Botticelli, two angels draw back curtains to reveal the Virgin and Child, who are framed by slender trees in a setting suggesting a throne. The intimate presentation of the holy figures and Christ's gesture of blessing suggest that this painting served a private devotional function. This supposition is supported by the choice of format, since a Florentine patron would have typically commissioned a circular painting, or tondo, for use in a bedchamber.
– based on curator's notes at the Art Institute of Chicago
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| Sandro Botticelli Virgin and Child ca. 1490 tempera on panel Harvard Art Museums |
Botticelli oversaw an active workshop that produced multiple versions of the same composition. The central figures in this painting are a reworking of the Virgin and Child from the San Barnaba altarpiece, one of the most important commissions of Botticelli's mature period in Florence. They are framed in a pavilion whose perspective is carefully rendered, while in the background, a townscape rises beneath a blue sky. The crisp linearity, idealized facial features, foreshortened halos, and geometric organization of space are characteristically Florentine. The architecture of the buildings, however, is Netherlandish – evidence of the vibrant cultural exchange between Florence and the North during the fifteenth century.
– based on curator's notes at the Harvard Art Museums