Circle of Giovanni Bellini

This monumental and highly refined drawing, unpublished until its exhibition in 2002, is an extremely rare example of a large scale Venetian portrait drawing of exceptional quality, executed in the last years of the 15th century, when Venetian art, revolving around the pivotal figure of Bellini, was in the forefront of artistic innovation and achievement.  Given that so very few drawings of this type have survived, it is remarkable not only that the present work has been preserved in such a good state of conservation, but also that it should have remained entirely unknown to scholarship until its very recent, and immensely important, re-appearance.

Bellini's relatively small-scale, bust-length painted portraits of Venetian and visiting patricians and scholars represent an aspect of his art which was both highly original and extremely popular.  Until this time the Italian convention, in accordance with the precedents of antique coins and medals, and also written ekphrases, was that portrait painters showed their subjects in profile.  Bellini, however, absorbed the example of northern artists such as Van Eyck and began to show his sitters frontally or in three-quarters profile; his first painting of this type was the 1474 portrait of the German nobleman Jörg Fugger (Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena).  This compositional innovation, together with the artist's gift (specifically noted by Vasari) for capturing naturalistic expressions, effectively revolutionised Italian portraiture in the last decades of the 15th century.  Despite their popularity, however, relatively few portraits by Bellini survive, and even fewer survive in good condition, although some by his immediate pupils and followers have been preserved.  

Much the same is true of the portrait drawings that correspond in conception with the paintings.  Clearly, some drawings of this type were made -- large-scale, highly atmospheric, bust-length frontal studies of figures -- although it is not clear whether they were studies for paintings, or intended as independent works of art. In any case, only a handful of such drawings have survived from the immediate orbit of Giovanni Bellini.   Somewhat softer and more fluid in handling than drawings by Bellini himself, such as the famous Head of St. Anthony Abbot, in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle (see A.E. Popham and J. Wilde, The Italian Drawings of the XV and XVI Centuries...at Windsor Castle, London 1949, cat. no. 2, reproduced plate 153), yet hardly of lesser quality, the present drawing must be by one of the artists who worked very closely with the great Venetian master, and absorbed the beauty and monumentality of his highly innovative style. 

Largely because the drawings by these artists are so extremely rare, precise attributions are much debated, and are generally based on comparisons and connections with paintings.  When the present drawing was exhibited in 2002 as a work by Lotto, the catalogue entry freely cited Roger Rearick's opinion that there exists no other drawing by Lotto bearing any technical resemblance to this work, but the attribution was nonetheless advanced, largely on the basis of a comparison with another very atmospheric drawing of a Portrait of a Youth, in the Albertina, Vienna, which has sometimes been given to Lotto.  The Albertina drawing does indeed seem stylistically the closest to this of any surviving drawn portrait of the period, but its attribution to Lotto is by no means widely accepted:  scholars have also attributed it to Gentile Bellini and Bartolommeo Veneto, as well as to the Mantuan-trained Francesco Bonsignori (1455 - 1519), to whom it is given in the most recent Albertina Catalogues (see V. Birke and J. Kertész, Die Italienischen Zeichnungen der Albertina, Generalverzeichnis, vol II, Vienna/Cologne/ Weimar 1994, p. 775, inv. 1453).

The present drawing is, however, manifestly closer to the sensibility of Bellini than to that of Lotto, and there are considerable similarities, particularly in the modelling and lighting of the nose and eyes, with paintings by artists in Bellini's immediate circle, notably Andrea Previtali, Bartolommeo Veneto and Marco Basaiti.  Without any precisely comparable drawings or direct connection with a painted work, this drawing must remain classified as Bottega di Bellini, but there can be no uncertainty concerning its importance, rarity and very great beauty.   

The watermark, a rather squat bird (probably a quail or grouse), is similar to others found in papers manufactured in the Veneto in the last quarter of the 15th Century (e.g. Briquet 12135, Verona 1491-1502).