IOANIS BAPT.
CONEGLANES.
OPVS.
as well as the internal evidence of the picture show it to be an authentic work.
One of the best, but until recent years one of the least known, members of that brilliant group of painters who flourished at Venice in the early half of the sixteenth century was Lorenzo Lotto (1480–1556). He practised his art in many parts of Italy, and for that reason has been less generally known than many of his contemporaries. He was a pupil of Alvise Vivarini, but benefited largely by the example of Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione. His art is not well seen in the small St. Jerome (No. 1350), which is signed and dated “lotvs 1500” and must therefore be one of his earliest and least ambitious works, nor in his Holy Family (No. 1351) which was formerly attributed to Dosso Dossi. Replicas have been found of his Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery (No. 1349).
PLATE IX.—ANTONELLO DA MESSINA
(1430–1479)
VENETIAN SCHOOL
No. 1134.—PORTRAIT OF A CONDOTTIERE
(Portrait d’homme dit le Condottiere)
Bust portrait, turned three-quarters to the left. He wears a black doublet, above the collar of which is visible the edge of a white linen under-garment. Under his cap is seen his zazzara of red-brown hair.
Painted in oil on panel.
Signed:
“1474
Antonellus Messaneus me
pinxit.”
1 ft. 1 in. × 11 in. (0·33 × 0·28.)