BELLINI, Giovanni (b. ca. 1426, Venezia, d. 1516, Venezia) Barbarigo Altarpiece 1488 Oil on canvas, 200 x 320 cm San Pietro Martire, Murano The painting representing the Madonna and Child, St. Mark, St. Augustin and the Kneeling Agostino Barbarigo, and musician Angels is known as the Barbarigo Altarpiece. It is signed and dated in the centre of the Virgin's throne: "IOANNES BELLINVS 1488". The painting, one of the few chronologically undisputed points in Bellini's career, dates to 1488, the date written after the signature in the centre of the Virgin's throne. The first source conc
BELLINI, Giovanni (b. ca. 1426, Venezia, d. 1516, Venezia) Barbarigo Altarpiece 1488 Oil on canvas, 200 x 320 cm San Pietro Martire, Murano The painting representing the Madonna and Child, St. Mark, St. Augustin and the Kneeling Agostino Barbarigo, and musician Angels is known as the Barbarigo Altarpiece. It is signed and dated in the centre of the Virgin's throne: "IOANNES BELLINVS 1488". The painting, one of the few chronologically undisputed points in Bellini's career, dates to 1488, the date written after the signature in the centre of the Virgin's throne. The first source concerning the altarpiece is the will of the person who commissioned it, Doge Agostino Barbarigo. Belonging to an important family of the Venetian aristocracy, Agostino, a unique case in the history of the Republic, had succeeded his elder brother Marco to the dogate, although the death of the latter, following a furious public argument between the two brothers over political differences, was seen by many as his responsibility. To demonstrate that he was the heir and loyal continuer of his brother's actions, in the first years of his office especially he had promoted a series of public artistic commissions (the Scala dei Giganti, entrusted to Marco and Pietro Lombardo, the Torre dell'Orologio of Mauro Codussi, the completion of the Ducal Palace with the building of the wing towards the Rio), aimed at a stately and hegemonic image of Venice, consonant with the political ideas which had been Marco's and which he had made his own. At the same time, in a private context, he was engaged in the erection of a grand funerary monument in Santa Maria della Carità for himself and his brother, commissioned Gentile Bellini with the official portrait of Marco for the series in the room of the Maggior Consiglio (a portrait that was executed between 1486 and 1487), and entrusted Giovanni Bellini with the task of painting a "pala granda" (large altarpiece), as a token of expiation for his moral deb
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Photo credit: © Carlo Bollo / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: artwork, paint, painter, painting, paintings
