Antonello da Messina

Sicilian, c. 1430 - 1479

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Italian Renaissance painter (1430–1479)

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Shown from the waist up, a young woman embraces a baby in this vertical painting. They both have peachy skin, reddish-blond hair, and round faces. The woman is angled to our left and almost takes up the height of the painting. She looks down with gray eyes through lowered lids, under slender, arched brows. She has a straight nose and her pale pink lips are closed. Barely visible, a thin dotted white line spans her brow. A few loose, copper-colored tendrils frame her face under an azure-blue mantle that drapes over her head, shoulders, and arms. Under the mantle she wears a brick-red robe with a stylized, plant-like pattern in gold on the upper bodice and the cuff we can see. Her left elbow, on our right, rests on a sage-green ledge that runs along the bottom edge of the composition, and that hand dangles over the child’s leg. Her other hand curves around the baby’s back. The child is turned to our right to face the woman. He is wrapped in a cloak the same red as the woman's robe, and it has a thin gold border. He sits on a kelly-green cushion resting along the left side of the ledge. His head is turned to gaze off to our right with large hazel eyes under thin brows. He has a button nose and a rosy flush around his small pink mouth, which is slightly open. His right hand dips into the woman’s neckline while the other arm embraces her neck. His right leg stretches out toward her so one pudgy foot peeks out from under the red cloth. The horizon of the landscape behind them comes halfway up the painting. Sloping fields are dotted with trees. Low hills are ice blue in the hazy distance along the horizon, and the sky above is nearly white near the mountains, deepening to pale blue along the top edge.
Antonello da Messina, Madonna and Child, c. 1475, oil and tempera on panel transferred from panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.30

Madonna and Child

Antonello da Messina · c. 1475 · oil and tempera on panel transferred from panel ·  Accession ID  1937.1.30

Shown from the chest up, a clean shaven, young man with pale, rosy skin and curly, mahogany-red hair, looks at or toward us against a black background in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our left, and he turns his face slightly to look our way with sienna-brown eyes under curved eyebrows. He has a long, prominent nose and small thin pink lips. His shoulder length hair curls tightly around his face and covers his ears. He wears a tomato-red shirt with a high collar trimmed with white.
Antonello da Messina, Portrait of a Young Man, c. 1475/1479, tempera and oil on poplar panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.31

Portrait of a Young Man

Antonello da Messina · c. 1475/1479 · tempera and oil on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1937.1.31

Bibliography

1993

  • Arbace, Luciana. Antonello da Messina. Catalogo completo dei dipinti. Florence, 1993.

1996

  • Wright, Joanne. "Antonello da Messina." In The Dictionary of Art. Edited by Jane Turner. 34 vols. New York and London, 1996: 2:178-183.

1998

  • Savettieri, Chiara. Antonello da Messina. Palermo, 1998.

  • Sricchia Santoro, Fiorella. Il Cinquecento. L'arte del Rinascimento. Milan, 1998.

2003

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 36.