The Infant Bacchus

probably 1505/1510

Giovanni Bellini

Artist, Venetian, c. 1430/1435 - 1516

A young, pale-skinned boy wearing a brilliant blue toga sits on a rock and holds a gold pitcher in a landscape in this vertical painting. The boy’s body faces us, and he leans onto his right hand, to our left, so his body and head tip in that direction. He wears a leafy crown over long blond curls. He looks slightly up with wide-set, light brown eyes. He has round, rosy cheeks, and his pink lips are parted. He holds the gold pitcher up in his left hand, to our right. One foot rests on a rock and the other stretches long, to our right. A thin tree grows diagonally up and to our right from behind the outstretched foot, and another tree grows a short distance beyond. Behind the boy, green hills roll back to the horizon, which comes three-quarters of the way up the composition. Mountains, which are blue in the hazy distance, line the horizon under a sky streaked with ivory white above the peaks and topaz blue above.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel transferred to panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 50.05 × 39 cm (19 11/16 × 15 3/8 in.)
    framed: 66.68 × 55.56 × 9.53 cm (26 1/4 × 21 7/8 × 3 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1961.9.5

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly Bortolo Dafino (Bartolomeo Da Fin), Venice, by 1648.[1] Frederick Richards Leyland [1831-1892], London; (his estate sale, Christie's, London, 28 May 1892, no. 107, as by Giolfino); (Charles Fairfax Murray, London);[2] sold to Robert Henry [1850-1929] and Evelyn Holford [1856-1943] Benson, London and Buckhurst Park, Sussex;[3] sold 1927 with the Benson collection to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris); sold 1949 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] The painting is often identified as the one described in 1648 by Carlo Ridolfi, writing about the Dafino collection, as "un Bachetto con vaso in mano, di Giorgione" ("a young Bacchus holding a vase in his hand, by Giorgione"); Carlo Ridolfi, Le maraviglie dell'arte, ouero Le vite de gl'illustri pittori veneti, e dello stato, 2 vols., Venice, 1648: 2:201.
[2] The buyer's name was kindly supplied by Christie's Archives, London (e-mail of 23 October 2013, in NGA curatorial files).
[3] Sebag-Montefiore, Charles, "R.H. Benson as a Collector," in Jehanne Wake, Kleinwort Benson. The History of Two Families in Banking, Oxford, 1997: 486. This listing of the painting indicates it was purchased at the Leyland sale. Murray was possibly acting for the Bensons, but Christie's documents the sale price as 267 Pounds (see note 2), and Benson records have a purchase price of 700 Pounds (letter, 2 February 1976, Peter Wake [Benson's grandson] to Anna Voris, quoting Benson's records of prices he paid; in NGA curatorial files).
[4] Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:54-55. See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2201.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1912

  • A Collection of Pictures of the Early Venetian School and Other Works of Art, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1912, no. 18 (no. 29 and pl. XXV of illustrated catalogue titled Early Venetian Pictures and Other Works of Art).

1927

  • Loan Exhibition of the Benson Collection of Old Italian Masters, City of Manchester Art Gallery, 1927, no. 27.

1940

  • Four Centuries of Venetian Paintings, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, 1940, no. 9, repro.

2023

  • Przebvszeni: Ruiny Antyku i Narodziny Włoskiego Renesansu [Awakened: The Ruins of Antiquity and the Birth of the Italian Renaissance], Warsaw Royal Castle, 2023, no. 107, repro.

Bibliography

1914

  • Borenius, Tancred. Catalogue of Italian Pictures at 16 South Street, Park Lane, London and Buckhurst in Sussex Collected by Robert and Evelyn Benson. London, 1914: no. 75.

1956

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-56. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida and Fern Rusk Shapley. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1956: 30, no. 7, repro.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 142, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 12.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 5, repro.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 43, fig. 100.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 23, 647.

1974

  • Fehl, Philipp. "The Worship of Bacchus and Venus in Bellini's and Titian's Bacchanals for Alfonso d'Este." Studies in the History of Art vol. 6 (1974):51, 52 repro.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 22, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:54-55; 2:pl. 30.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 203, no. 245, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 43, repro.

1988

  • Sebag-Montefiore, Charles. "Three Lost Collections of London." National Art Collections Fund Magazine 38 (Christmas 1988): 54.

2019

  • Lucco, Mauro, Peter Humfrey, and Giovanni C.F. Villa. Giovanni Bellini: Catalogo ragionato. Treviso, 2019: 581-582, cat. 189.

Wikidata ID

Q3632511

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