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Shown from the chest up, a clean-shaven young man with pale, peachy skin looks off to our left against a cloudy sky in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our left, and he gazes in that direction with dark eyes under thick, arched brows. He has a long nose, smooth cheeks, and a hint of a five-o-clock shadow around his closed, peach-colored lips. Chestnut-brown hair is covered by a black headdress with two long tails. One end drapes over the front of his right shoulder, farther from us, and the other end hangs down his back. He wears a brick-red garment that falls in vertical pleats from a high collar. A white undergarment peeks out from the top of the neckline, and the collar is fastened with a small clasp at the throat. Behind him, tan-colored clouds float across a blue sky.

Giovanni Bellini

Portrait of a Young Man in Red, c. 1480

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 12

Medium

oil and tempera on panel

Dimensions

overall: 32 x 26.5 cm (12 5/8 x 10 7/16 in.)

framed: 50.5 x 44.9 x 3.5 cm (19 7/8 x 17 11/16 x 1 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Andrew W. Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1937.1.29

Artists / Makers

Giovanni Bellini (artist) Venetian, c. 1430/1435 - 1516

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Possibly Andrea Vendramin, Venice, by 1627.[1] Count Manfred von Ingenheim [b. 1896], Ober-Rengersdorf, Germany; (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); purchased February 1930 by Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.; deeded 28 December 1934 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[2] gift 1937 to NGA.

[1] Tancred Borenius, "More about the Andrea Vendramin Collection," Burlington Magazine 9, no. 348 (March 1932): 145, pl. 2A, first suggested that the NGA portrait may be identified with a picture attributed to Bellini in the illustrated inventory of the paintings in the collection of Andrea Vendramin compiled in 1627 (see Tancred Borenius, The Picture Gallery of Andrea Vendramin, London, 1923: pl. 10).

[2] Mellon purchase date and date deeded to Mellon Trust are according to Mellon collection files in NGA curatorial records and David Finley's notebook (donated to the National Gallery of Art in 1977, now in the Gallery Archives).

Associated Names

Duveen Brothers, Inc.
Ingenheim, Manfred von, Count
Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, The A.W.
Mellon, Andrew W.
Vendramin, Andrea

Bibliography

1923: Marle, Raimond van. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 19 vols. The Hague, 1923-1938: 17(1935):305, fig. 184.

1930: Gronau, Georg. Giovanni Bellini. New York, 1930: 213, fig. 141.

1930: Mayer, August L. "Zu den Bildnissen des Gentile Bellini." Pantheon 5 (Jan.-June 1930): 17-22: 22, repro.

1931: Venturi, Lionello. Pitture italiane in America. Milan, 1931: pl. 297, note.

1932: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places. Oxford, 1932: 75.

1932: Borenius, Tancred. "More about the Andrea Vendramin Collection." The Burlington Magazine 9, no. 348 (March 1932): 140-145, pl. 2A.

1933: Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. Translated by Countess van den Heuvel and Charles Marriott. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 2:pl. 397, note.

1935: Dussler, Luitpold. Giovanni Bellini. Frankfurt, 1935: 100-101, 138.

1937: Cortissoz, Royal. An Introduction to the Mellon Collection. Boston, 1937: 17.

1937: Gamba, Carlo. Giovanni Bellini. Milan, 1937: 85, fig. 78 (French ed. translated by Jean Chuzeville, Paris, 1938: 91, fig. 78).

1937: Jewell, Edward Alden. "Mellon's Gift." Magazine of Art 30, no. 2 (February 1937): 82.

1941: Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 85, repro.

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 19, no. 29.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 239, repro. 67.

1945: Hendy, Philip and Ludwig Goldscheider. Giovanni Bellini. Oxford and London, 1945: pl. 41.

1949: Dussler, Luitpold. Giovanni Bellini. Vienna, 1949: 44, 98, fig. 128.

1949: Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 33, repro.

1952: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 52, color repro.

1956: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 24, repro.

1957: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Venetian School. 2 vols. London, 1957: 1:36. 2:pl. 229.

1957: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 64, note.

1959: Pallucchini, Rodolfo. Giovanni Bellini. Milan, 1959; English ed., translated by R. Boothroyd, London, 1962: 92, 150, fig. 171.

1962: Heinemann, Fritz. Giovanni Bellini e i belliniani. 2 vols. Venice, 1962: 1:76, no. 272; 2:fig. 116.

1963: Bottari, Stefano. Tutta la pittura di Giovanni Bellini. 2 vols. Milan, 1963: 1:41, pl. 142.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 302, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 11.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:150, color repro.

1968: Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 37-38, color repro.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 4, repro.

1968: Pallucchini, Anna. In National Gallery 1968: 37-38, repro.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 23, 645.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 20, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:33-34; 2:pl. 21.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 112, no. 86, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 39, repro.

1991: Heinemann, Fritz. Giovanni Bellini e i Belliniani, Vol. III. Supplemento e Ampliamenti. Hildesheim, 1991: 30, no. 272.

1992: Tempestini, Anchise. Giovanni Bellini: catalogo completo dei dipinti. Florence, 1992: 126-127, no. 40, color repro.

2003: Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 52-55, color repro.

2008: Lucco, Mauro, and Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa, eds. Giovanni Bellini. Exh. cat. Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, 2008: 80, fig. 4, 81.

2019: Lucco, Mauro, Peter Humfrey, and Giovanni C.F. Villa. Giovanni Bellini: Catalogo ragionato. Treviso, 2019: 439-440, cat. 81.