School of GENTILE BELLINI (1429-1507)

Details

School of GENTILE BELLINI (1429-1507)

Portrait of John VIII Paleologus, bust length, wearing a gold brocade costume and an elaborate cap

oil on panel
9 1/8 x 6¾in. (23.2 x 17.3cm.)

Provenance

Han Coray, Erlenbach; sale, Wertheim, Berlin, Oct. 1, 1930, lot 30 as Venetian Master
with Agnew's, London, 1931
Jackson Higgs, New York; his sale, Anderson Galleries, New York, Dec. 7, 1932, lot 33 as Gentile Bellini ($1,500 to William Fox)
Arthur Erlanger, New York
with Piero Tozzi, New York, from whom purchased by Miss Tully in 1964

Literature

F.E. Washburn Freund, Der Cicerone, 1927, p. 243
R. van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, XVII, 1935, p. 173, note 1
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Venetian School, 1957, I, p. 29, as the work of a close follower of Gentile Bellini
F. Heinemann, Giovanni Bellini e i Belliniani, III, 1991, p. 119, fig. 227, 'Per la pennellata non ha nulla a che vedere con Gentile Bellini, è dipinto infatti in modo molto più fluido e va datato intorno al 1520. È possibile che si tratti qui di una copia tarda da un ritratto perduto del Pisanello'

Exhibited

New York, American Art Association-Anderson Galleries, Important Paintings of Old and Modern Masters, Mar. 15-Apr. 4, 1931, as Gentile Bellini

Lot Essay

When sold in 1932 at the Anderson Galleries, the present painting was accompanied by a certificate by Dr. Alfred M. Frankfurter dated March 10, 1931, confirming an earlier attribution by Dr. Gustav Gronau to Gentile Bellini. He dated the picture to 1479-80 during Bellini's visit to Constantinople.

The visit of the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaeologus to the Council of Ferrara/Florence in 1438, which endeavored to reconcile the theological differences between the Eastern and Western churches, was to prove of lasting inspiration to artists even if it failed in its aim of church unity. The exotic appearance and dress of the emperor, and indeed of his entourage, captivated artists eager to believe that their costume reflected the sort of clothes worn in the Orient in former times. Most memorably, Pisanello produced a medal representing the Emperor in profile wearing a splendid and fantastical hat, and it was to be this likeness which tended to be copied in subsequent portraits, as is the case here (see, for example, R. Weiss, Pisanello's Medallion of the Emperor John VIII Palaeologus, 1966). It also inspired representations of historical characters, the most notable instance being Piero della Francesca's borrowing of John VIII's features and attire for the representation of the first Christian Emperor, Constantine, triumphing over Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in his fresco cycle of the True Cross in the Basilica of S. Francesco at Arezzo