Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio or Beltraffio (Milan 1466/67[1] — Milan, 1516) was a Lombard painter of the High Renaissance who worked in the studio of Leonardo.[2] Boltraffio and Bernardino Luini are the strongest artistic personalities to emerge from Leonardo's studio. According to Giorgio Vasari, he was of an aristocratic family.
His major painting of the 1490s is the Resurrection painted with Marco d'Oggiono (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin). A Leonardesque Madonna and Child in the Poldi-Pezzoli Museum, Milan, is one of the high points of the Lombard Quattrocento.
His portraits, often in profile, and his half-length renderings of the Madonna and Child are Leonardesque in conception, though the clean hard edges of his outlines lack Leonardo's sfumato.
In Bologna, 1500-02, he found sympathetic patrons in the Casio family, of whom he painted several portraits and for whom he produced his masterwork, the Pala Casio for the Church of the Misericordia (Louvre Museum); it is a Madonna and Child with John the Baptist and Saint Sebastian, and two kneeling donors, Giacomo Marchione de' Pandolfi da Casio and his son, the Bolognese poet Girolamo Casio (1464 - 1533), who mentioned Boltraffio in some of his sonnets.[3]
The standard monograph is Maria Teresa Fiorio, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio: Un pittore milanese nel lume di Leonardo. (Milan and Rome) 2000.
[edit] Notes
- ^ According to his tombstone he was 49 at his death in 1516.
- ^ Leonardo records a "Gian Antonio" in his studio in 1491.
- ^ A portrait of Girolamo Casio is at the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan.
[edit] Selected works with disputed attribution
- Madonna Litta, (Saint Petersburg, Hermitage, sometimes attributed to Marco d´Oggiono).
- Holy family, (National Gallery in Prague, probably a copy after the unknown original).
- Virgin and child with donor, (Rome, Sant´Onofrio, Museo del Tasso, sometimes attributed to Cesare da Sesto).
- (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco) Portrait of a Man, probably by Ambrogio de Predis.
[edit] References
- (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC: Brief biography.
- Boltraffio on the Web
- (Louvre Museum) The Pala Casio
- (Museo Poldi-Pezzoli, Milan) Madonna and Child 1495.
- (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest) Madonna and Child
- (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan) Portrait of Girolamo Casio 1500-02
- (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC) Portrait of a Youth
- (National Gallery, London) Portrait of a Man and two renditions of the Madonna and Child, one by a follower of Boltraffio
- (Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, CA) Youth Holding an Arrow. The sitter portrayed crowned with a laurel-entwined fillet, is likely to be the poet, Girolamo Casio.
- Web Gallery of Art Photo repertory of Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio.
- Database: Photo repertory of Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio.
