Gentile Bellini, 'Cardinal Bessarion with the Bessarion Reliquary', about 1472-3
About the work
Overview
The figure in black is the Greek archbishop John Bessarion. In 1453, after the fall of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine (Eastern Christian) Empire, to the Islamic Ottoman Empire, Bessarion became a permanent resident in Venice. He joined the Scuola della Carità, a religious confraternity, ten years later; the two men in white robes here are high-ranking members of that confraternity.
The men are worshipping a reliquary which Bessarion donated to the confraternity in the hope that it would inspire western Christians to help Greek Christians after the fall of Constantinople. Reliquaries were made to hold relics – in this case two fragments thought to come from the Cross that Christ was crucified on, as well as two scraps of fabric which supposedly came from his garments. The painting was made as a decorated door panel for the tabernacle that contained the reliquary.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Cardinal Bessarion and Two Members of the Scuola della Carità in prayer with the Bessarion Reliquary
- Artist
- Gentile Bellini
- Artist dates
- active about 1460; died 1507
- Date made
- about 1472-3
- Medium and support
- egg tempera on wood
- Dimensions
- 102.3 × 37.2 cm
- Acquisition credit
- Bought with the support of a number of gifts in wills, 2002
- Inventory number
- NG6590
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Frame
- 20th-century Replica Frame
Provenance
Additional information
This painting is included in a list of works with incomplete provenance from 1933–1945; for more information see Whereabouts of paintings 1933–1945.
Text extracted from the National Gallery’s Annual Report, ‘The National Gallery Review: April 2001 – March 2002’.
Exhibition history
-
2008Byzantium 330-1453Royal Academy of Arts25 October 2008 - 22 March 2009
-
2010Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval EuropeThe British Museum23 June 2011 - 9 October 2011
Bibliography
-
1878H. Vast, Le Cardinal Bessarion (1403-1472): Étude sur le chrétienté et la renaissance vers le milieu du XVe siècle, Paris 1878
-
1888T. von Frimmel (ed.), Der Anonimo Morelliano, Vienna 1888
-
1986F. Lollini, Il Cardenale Bessarione e le arti figurative, Master's Thesis, Università di Bologna 1986
-
1992R. Polacco, 'La storia del Reliquario Bessarione dopo il rinvenimento del verso della croce scomparsa', Saggi et memorie di storia dell'arte, XVIII, 1992, pp. 85-95, 195-202
-
1994G. Fiaccadori (ed.), Bessarione e l'umanesimo: Catalogo della mostra (exh. cat. Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, 27 April - 31 May 1994), Venice 1994
-
1995A. Cutler, 'From Loot to Scholarship: Changing Modes in the Italian Response to Byzantine Artefacts', Dumbarton Oaks Papers, XLIX, 1995, pp. 237-67
-
1997E. Welch, Art and Society in Italy, 1350-1500, Oxford 1997
-
2002National Gallery, The National Gallery Review: April 2001 - March 2002, London 2002
-
2005J. Fletcher and R.C. Mueller, 'Bellini and the Bankers: The Priuli Altarpiece for S. Michele in Isola, Venice', The Burlington Magazine, CXLVII/1222, 2005, pp. 5-15
-
2005C. Campbell and A. Chong, Bellini and the East (exh. cat. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 14 December 2005 - 26 March 2006; The National Gallery, London, 12 April - 25 June 2006), Boston 2005
-
2008R. Cormack and M. Vasilaki, Byzantium 330-1453 (exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London), London and New York 2008
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.