e-arthistory: MANTEGNA-BELLINI COMPARISON LIST

MANTEGNA-BELLINI COMPARISON LIST

A review of paintings by Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini reveals that they
often did similar subjects and rarely used the same medium. In this list I have paired similar subjects by both painters, with Mantegna on the left and Giovanni Bellini on the right. All the paintings I have found by Mantegna, apart from his frescoes in the Ducal Palace in Mantua, are painted in tempera, quite a conservative medium in Italy when he is painting in the 1490's. Giovanni Bellini, on the other hand, (except for the Agony in the Garden, where he is competing with Mantegna directly and uses tempera, and his fresco paintings for the Scuola and the Ducal Palace in Venice,) uses oil paint exclusively. Which means, perhaps, that when trying to determine if a painting is by Mantegna or Giovanni Bellini, medium is the first thing that should be checked.
Here is a partial list of similar painted subjects by the two artists:

Folded paper:

Mantegna, 1465-74-Camera degli Bellini, Sacra Conversazione, 1505

sposi, Mantua, ducal letter folded    Birmingham.

Single Saints:
Mantegna, St. Mark 1448                   Giovanni Bellini, Fra Teodoro da Urbino
Stadel Museum, Frankfurt                   as St. Dominic 1515
                                                             Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Not quite a fair comparison since Mantegna's painting is one of his earliest, at age 17, and the Bellini painting is a year before he died, at age 89. That said, it seems that in the Fra Teodoro painting Bellini is nostalgic for his rival, Mantegna, and includes the lily and flowered-print backdrop with the book and
ledge in memory of him. (Mantegna died in 1506, a year before Gentile Bellini and 10 years years before Giovanni Bellini.)

2 subjects by these artists that we have discussed in a previous blog entry:
Presentation in the Temple 1454 Presentation in the Temple 1454
Gemaldegalerie, Berlin Fondazione Querini-Stampalia, Venice

Agony in the Garden 1455 Agony in the Garden 1455

NGL (National Gallery,London) NGL

Madonna and Sleeping Child: 1455                 Madonna of the Trees: 1487
Gemaldegalerie, Berlin    Accademia, Venice

Madonna of the Cave 1465 Madonna and Child Blessing 1510
Uffizi, Florence Brera Gallery, Milan

Madonna and Child with St. John             Madonna and Child with Saints
Baptist and Magdalene 1500 NGL            Catherine and Magdalene 1490
                                                                              Accademia, Venice

Pala Trivulzio 1497                                              San Giobbe Altarpiece, 1480-88
Castello Sforzesca, Milano                                  Accademia, Venice