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Alvise Vivarini

Portrait of a Man, c. 1495

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 12

Medium

oil on panel

Dimensions

overall: 34.9 x 30.8 cm (13 3/4 x 12 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1939.1.355

Artists / Makers

Alvise Vivarini (painter) Venetian, 1442/1453 - 1503/1505

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Provenance

Probably Sir John Charles Robinson [1824-1913], London; sold to Sir Frederick Cook, 1st bt. [1844-1920], Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, and bought back by Robinson; sold 1892 to Martine-Marie-Pol de Behague, comtesse de Béarn [1869 or 1870-1939], Paris;[1] sold December 1917 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York);[2] sold March 1937 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1939 to NGA.

[1] A note by Ellis Waterhouse (in NGA curatorial files), dated 22 July 1980, states that notebooks of Sir J.C. Robinson in the Department of Western Art Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, seem to show that the painting was bought or bought back by him from Sir Frederick Cook for 400 Pounds and sold as Antonello in 1892 to the comtesse de Béarn for 1600 Pounds. As Francis Cook was still alive and actively collecting at this time, Waterhouse almost certainly meant to indicate Francis and not Frederick; in any case, Frederick appears to have had little interest in art collecting.

[2] According to the X Book, Reel 422, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (copy in NGA curatorial files).

[3] The Duveen Brothers letter confirming the sale of twenty-four paintings, including "A Portrait of a Man by Giovanni Bellini," is dated 9 March 1937; the provenance is given as "Comtesse de Béarn Collection" (copy in NGA curatorial files; Box 474, Folder 5, Duveen Brothers Records). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1689.

Associated Names

Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Robinson, John Charles, Sir

Bibliography

1894: Berenson, Bernard. The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance. New York and London, 1894: 148.

1895: Berenson, Bernard. Lorenzo Lotto: An Essay in Constructive Art Criticism. London, 1895: 114.

1901: Berenson, Bernard. Lorenzo Lotto: An Essay in Constructive Art Criticism. Rev. ed. London, 1901: 89, repro.

1901: Venturi, Adolfo. Storia dell’arte italiana. 11 vols. Milan, 1901-1940: 7, part 4 (1915):432.

1907: Venturi, Lionello. Le origini della pittura veneziana 1300-1500. Venice, 1907: 247.

1923: Marle, Raimond van. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 19 vols. The Hague, 1923-1938: 17(1935): 303, fig. 183, as by Giovanni Bellini.

1927: Hadeln, Detlev von. “Two Portraits by Giovanni Bellini.” The Burlington Magazine 51 (July 1927): 7, as by Giovanni Bellini.

1930: Gronau, Georg. Giovanni Bellini. New York, 1930: 205, pl. 71, as by Giovanni Bellini.

1931: Venturi, Lionello. Pitture italiane in America. Milan, 1931: pl. 286, as by Antonello da Messina.

1933: Lauts, Johann. ”Antonello da Messina.” Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlung in Wien n.s. 7 (1933): 75, as by Filippo Mazzola.

1933: Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. Translated by Countess Vanden Heuvel and Charles Marriott. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 2:pl.381, as by Antonello da Messina.

1935: Dussler, Luitpold. Giovanni Bellini. Frankfurt, 1935: 157.

1937: Gamba, Carlo. Giovanni Bellini. Milan, 1937: 84-85, repro., as by Giovanni Bellini.

1938: Gamba, Carlo. Giovanni Bellini. Translated by Jean Chuzeville. Paris, 1938: 77, 91, repro, as by Giovanni Bellini.

1939: Coletti, Luigi. “Lotto e Melozzo.” Le arti 1 (1939): 351-352, as by Lorenzo Lotto.

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 21-22, no. 448, as Portrait of a Senator by Giovanni Bellini.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 248, repro. 70, as Portrait of a Senator by Giovanni Bellini.

1949: Dussler, Luitpold. Giovanni Bellini. Vienna, 1949: 79.

1953: Bottari, Stefano. Antonello da Messina. Milan, 1953: 51.

1957: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Venetian School. 2 vols. London, 1957: 1:36.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 138, repro., as Portrait of a Senator by Giovanni Bellini.

1962: Heinemann, Fritz. Giovanni Bellini e i belliniani. 2 vols. Venice, 1962: 1:274; 2:pl.482.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 136, as Portrait of a Senator.

1967: Mandel, Gabriel, and Leonardo Sciascia. L’opera completa di Antonello da Messina. Milan, 1967: 100.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 124, repro., as Portrait of a Senator.

1968: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 49-50, fig. 117.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 210.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 368, repro., as Portrait of a Senator.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:536-537; 2:pl. 373, as Portrait of a Senator.

1981: Sricchia Santoro, Fiorella, ed. Antonello da Messina. Exh. cat. Museo Regionale, Messina, and Università di Studi di Catania, 1981: 206, pl. 50.

1982: Steer, John. Alvise Vivarini: His Art and Influence. Cambridge, 1982: 58, 147, 167-168, 188, cat. 41, pl. 35.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 426, repro., as Portrait of a Senator.

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: 679-682, color repro.

2011: Boskovits, Miklós, ed. The Alana Collection, Newark, Delaware, USA. Vol. II: Italian Paintings and Sculptures from the Fourteenth to Sixteenth Century. Florence, 2011: 219.

2016: Gelao, Clara, Franca Lugato, and Giovanni Valagussa, eds. I Vivarini: Lo splendore della pittura tra Gotico e Rinascimento. Exh. cat. Palazzo Sarcinelli, Conegliano, 2016: 152.

2017: Serres, Karen. "Duveen's Italian framemaker, Ferruccio Vannoni." The Burlington Magazine 159, no. 1370 (May 2017): 373 n. 41.

2021: Dal Pozzolo, Enrico Maria. Lorenzo Lotto: Catalogo generale dei dipinti. Milan, 2021: 507, cat. V.152, repro.

2023: Müller, Rebecca. Die Vivarini: Bildproduktion in Venedig 1440 bis 1505. Regensburg, 2023: 343 n. 168, 401.