Barbarigo Altarpiece

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Barbarigo Altarpiece
ArtistGiovanni Bellini
Year1488
Mediumoil on panel
Dimensions200 cm × 320 cm (79 in × 130 in)
LocationSan Pietro Martire, Murano

The Barbarigo Altarpiece or Enthroned Madonna and Child with Angel Musicians and

Saint Mark, Saint Augustine and Doge Agostino Barbarigo is a 1488 (dated on the throne) oil painting on panel by Giovanni Bellini, now in the church of San Pietro Martire in Murano
.

Its commission is unusually well-documented for a work by Bellini. Uniquely Agostino Barbarigo had taken over from his brother

Sala del Maggior Consiglio (1486–87) and then to produce a "large panel",[1] as his ex-voto for the Doge's Palace.[2]

Ex-voto

In Venice it became the custom in the Renaissance for the higher officials, beginning with the Doge, to commission (at their personal expense) an ex-voto painting in the form of a portrait of themselves with religious figures, usually the Virgin or saints, in thanks for achieving their office. For lower officials only their coat of arms might represent the official. The painting was hung in the public building where they worked or presided.[3]

Aspects of the picture hint at what many contemporaries saw as the excessive self-aggrandizement of the Barberigo brothers. Rather being presented to the Virgin and Child by his name-saint Augustine, as was usual, the Doge is presented by Saint Mark, patron saint of the

Venetian Republic, as well as Marco Barberigo. Instead of looking towards the Child, the Doge looks out towards the Venetians passing the painting. There was opposition to hanging it in the Doge's Palace, which may be why Barberigo instead bequeathed it to a convent (so probably saving it from a later fire).[4] Before this it apparently hung in his home, the Palazzo Barbarigo Nani Mocenigo (which survives; not the Palazzo Barbarigo).[5]

In 1501, already dying, Agostino left the canvas to the nunnery of

San Michele di Murano but probably mistook it for another Bellini work, now lost, which was already in the Cappella della Santissima Croce in the church of the Camaldolese
.

See also

Notes

  1. ISBN 88-8117-099-X
  2. ^ Ruggiero, 344
  3. ^ Lino Moretti, "Portraits", in Jane Martineau (ed), The Genius of Venice, 1500–1600, 1983, Royal Academy of Arts, London
  4. ^ Ruggiero, 344–345
  5. ISBN 88-8117-099-X

References
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