Follower of Vittore Carpaccio

Alexander Barker, Esq., Hatfield, England, until 1879;
His deceased sale, London, Christie's, June 19 - 21, 1879, lot 493 (as by Masaccio);
Sir William James Farrer, Sandhurst Lodge, Sandhurst, England;
By whose executors sold, London, Christie's, March 23, 1912, lot 52 (as School of Masaccio) to Dyen;
With Langdon Douglas, Scotland;
Lady Leonora Speyer, London and New York;
With Adolph Loewi, Los Angeles, by whom sold in 1951 to 
The Albright Art Gallery (purchased with general funds) inv. no. 50:9.

R. Fry, "Exhibition of Pictures of the Early Venetian School at the
Burlington Fine Arts Club, III" in The Burlington Magazine,
May 12, 1912, pp. 95 - 101, reproduced (as early Carpaccio);
R. van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting,
Vol. VIII, 1936, p. 374 (as influenced by Carpaccio);
The Art Digest, vol. 25, no. 14, April 15, 1951, cover reproduction
in color, and p. 9 (as Carpaccio);
Pictures on Exhibit, Vol. XIII, no. 8, May 1951, p. 55;
P. Kelleher, "The Life and Death of Alexander the Great," in
Gallery Notes, January 1952, pp. 2 - 4, reproduced (as Carpaccio or his immediate circle);
G. Cary, "Alexander the Great in Mediaeval Theology," in
Journal of the Warburg and Courthauld Institutes, vol. XVII,
numbers 1 - 2, January to June 1954;
B. Berensen, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Venetian
School, London 1957, p. 25 (as Lazzaro Bastiani);
A. Paolucci, "Benedetto Diana," in Paragone, September
1966, p. 7, reproduced plate 5 (as Diana);
B. Frederickson and F. Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century
Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972, p. 20 (as Bastiani);
S. A. Nash, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Painting and Sculpture from Antiquity to 1942, New York 1979, p. 162.

Although a certain attribution for this panel has eluded scholars, at the time the Albright Art Gallery purchased it, Roger Fry considered it to be an autograph work by the young Vittore Carpaccio, an attribution Fry supported by citing similarities between the present work and Carpaccio's slightly later St. Ursula series, now in the Accademia, Venice.  Antonio Morassi supported Fry's attribution, but subsequent scholars have called it into question, and have suggested alternative attributions: Rodolfo Pallucchini, in a private correspondence of June 21, 1954, gave the painting to Bastiani, an attribution that Bernard Berenson upheld when he published the picture as by Lazzaro Bastiani, and which Federico Zeri and Burton Frederickson also believed when they published it in 1972 (see Literature).  Alternatively, Fritz Heinemann and Antonio Paolucci considered the panel a work by Benedetto Diana (see Literature).

This panel depicts simultaneously different episodes from the life of the great warrior emperor, Alexander the Great.  In the background is an event from Alexander’s early age, taming of his horse, Bucephalus.  On the upper right side of the composition, on the balcony, Alexander is seen discoursing with his tutor, Aristotle, and in the center foreground, Alexander is seen apprising his men of the victories of his father, King Philip of Macedonia.  The scene on the left of the panel, Alexander reclining in his bed with a chalice, surrounded by men, one of whom is reading a letter, may be identified as Alexander and his physician, Philip.