Dosso Dossi

Lutero, Giovanni de

Ferrarese, active 1512 - 1542

Giovanni di Luteri, better known as Dosso Dossi, was an Italian Renaissance painter. He was a leading figure in the group of artists known as the School of Ferrara. Dossi created religious and mythological scenes set in lush, idealized landscapes.

Dossi’s patron was Alfonso I d’Este, the Duke of Ferrara between 1505 and 1534. A famed patron of the arts, the duke had also employed well-known painters of the Venetian school, including Giovanni Bellini and Titian.

Dossi’s use of color and soft, ethereal depictions of nature show clear influence from Venetian painters. In paintings such as The Trojans Building the Temple to Venus and Making Offerings at Anchises’s Grave in Sicily, we see Dossi’s vibrant palette. The artist filled his scenes with romance and fantasy. Dossi lived in Ferrara until his death in 1542.

Explore Selected Works

A pale, nearly nude young woman perches on a rock under a tree surrounded by small animals including dogs, deer, and birds, in this horizontal landscape painting. Her body faces us as, lips parted, she looks away to our left. She is covered only by an olive-green drape over her left thigh, on our right. She cradles what appears to be a tall stone tablet in her left arm and touches the inscribed surface with her right hand. White, buttercup-yellow, and crimson-red flowers crown her long blond hair. Her smooth pink skin stands out against the brown bark of the tree trunk behind her. By her right knee, a small brown doe stands looking at her. Closer to us, a white, wading bird dips its beak into a pool of water in the lower right corner of the painting. A large book of diagrams lies open next to the woman's foot, on the slate-gray ground. A small, white dog crouches next to the book on our right in front of a sleek, brown dog and a buck with antlers, and all face the woman in profile. In the trees above, a white hawk perches near the upper right corner of the canvas, and an owl sits on a branch over the woman’s head. Beyond the woman to our left, a steep bank is topped by wispy trees and shrubs. A sandy path meanders past the bank toward a wooden building in the distance. Delicate trees with rust-red and gold canopies frame the building, while a topaz-blue haze behind it suggests a forest beyond. Full, gray clouds fill the sky overhead above a band of pale light on the horizon.
Dosso Dossi, Circe and Her Lovers in a Landscape, c. 1525, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1943.4.49

Circe and Her Lovers in a Landscape

Dosso Dossi · c. 1525 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1943.4.49

Dosso Dossi, The Trojans Building the Temple to Venus and Making Offerings at Anchises's Grave in Sicily, c. 1520, oil on canvas, Purchased as the Gift of Anonymous, 2021.6.1

The Trojans Building the Temple to Venus and Making Offerings at Anchises's Grave in Sicily

Dosso Dossi · c. 1520 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2021.6.1

On the right side of this horizontal painting, two light-skinned men stand close to us on a spit of land separated from the rest of the scene by stretch of water that leads back to a town on the far shore. People gather on and around two boats floating in the water between the spit of land to our right and a copse of trees to our left. Beginning with the pair of men to our right: one man looking toward us has a broad forehead and grizzled blond beard. He wears a brick-red and canary-yellow turban, a yellow and crimson-red striped doublet with puffy sleeves, and a red codpiece. His scarlet-red hose have decorative slashes down the thigh to show yellow fabric underneath. He holds one long sword in his left hand, to our right, so the blade rests on that shoulder, and another sword hangs in a scabbard on his waist. Facing him, to our right, is the second man. He has a dark beard and a broad red hat trimmed with white feathers. He wears a doublet with wide red and white horizontal stripes and a white codpiece. His close-fitting white hose have thin, dark lines running from his waist to his feet, like pinstripes. He rests the back of his left hand, closer to us, on his hip. The tip of a long sword rests between his feet, and his far hand holds the hilt, which is as tall as his shoulder. Both men wear slipper-like shoes. Beyond this pair, near the center of the composition, a dozen men work on the wooden ships in the waterway. The trees to our left have feathery canopies of dense green foliage highlighted with butter yellow. A red pennant flutters in the wind near the left edge of the painting. About two dozen men, women, and children sit and stand closely under the trees. They wear capes, robes, turbans, and headdresses in aquamarine blue, marigold orange, burgundy red, cream white, and laurel green. Several of them are turned toward a woman dressed in blue holding an infant. Along the far shoreline, to our right, a city with tan-colored, stone towers glows under a soft topaz-blue sky, mirrored in the luminous blue water, as a ship with a billowing white sail passes by. On the distant horizon, high mountain peaks are faintly visible through a steel-blue haze.
Dosso Dossi, The Trojans Repairing Their Ships in Sicily, c. 1520, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.250

The Trojans Repairing Their Ships in Sicily

Dosso Dossi · c. 1520 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1939.1.250

Dosso Dossi, Saint Lucretia, c. 1520, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.388

Saint Lucretia

Dosso Dossi · c. 1520 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.388