Lot 8: Alvise Vivarini (Venice or Murano 1442/53-1503/5)

Portrait of a gentleman, bust-length, in a black coat and black cap
oil on marouflaged panel
11 1/8 x 8 1/2 in. (28.2 x 21.6 cm.)

Munich, Julius Böhler Gallery, Ausstellung altvenezianischer Malerei, 1931, no. 59.

The Art News, XXIX, no. 38, 11 July 1931, reproduced p. 18.
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Venetian School, London, 1957, I, pp. 196 and 201, as both Alvise and Bartolomeo Vivarini.
F. Heinemann, Giovanni Bellini, e i belliniani, Venice, 1962, I, p. 274, no. V 390, II, pl. 675, fig. 778.
J. Steer, Alvise Vivarini, His Art and Influence, Cambridge, 1982, pp. 59, 144, no. 20, 147, under no. 22, pls. 34 and 34a.

Gagliardi family, Florence; sale, Jandolo & Tavazi, Rome, 27 April et seq. 1908, lot 525, pl. XXXIII.
Private collection, Avignon.
with Julius Böhler, Munich, by 1929. Edward Hutton (1875-1959), London, by 1947.

Steer (op. cit., p. 144) observes that 'despite its condition and the radical change of appearance it underwent between 1944 and 1957, there is still a reason to believe that this is the remains of a genuine Alvise portrait of the late eighties or early nineties'. Steer cites comparisons with the Saint Sebastian of the Belluno altarpiece and Alvise's portrait in the National Gallery, London.

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