1474, Giovanni Bellini, Portrait of Joerg Fugger -- Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena)
From the museum label: Joerg Fugger, the heir of a wealthy German banking family who was resident in Venice, is depicted here at age 21. He wears in his hair a garland of small blue blossoms, which designates him as a student of ancient learning. This portrait is notable on several accounts: it is the first known portrait by Giovanni Bellini, the greatest Venetian painter of the early Italian Renaissance. It is also one of the first paintings by an Italian artist executed in oil rather than tempera. Further, the portrait's objective realism departs from the stiff, stylized, late-Gothic tradition of profile portraiture that then prevailed in Venice. Indeed, the youth's lively curled hair, three-quarter turn of his face and intense, slightly moody gaze leftward impart a sense of animation. Bellini's portrait of the young Fugger marks the seminal moment that would inform portrait painting in Italy for the next generation.
1474, Giovanni Bellini, Portrait of Joerg Fugger -- Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena)
From the museum label: Joerg Fugger, the heir of a wealthy German banking family who was resident in Venice, is depicted here at age 21. He wears in his hair a garland of small blue blossoms, which designates him as a student of ancient learning. This portrait is notable on several accounts: it is the first known portrait by Giovanni Bellini, the greatest Venetian painter of the early Italian Renaissance. It is also one of the first paintings by an Italian artist executed in oil rather than tempera. Further, the portrait's objective realism departs from the stiff, stylized, late-Gothic tradition of profile portraiture that then prevailed in Venice. Indeed, the youth's lively curled hair, three-quarter turn of his face and intense, slightly moody gaze leftward impart a sense of animation. Bellini's portrait of the young Fugger marks the seminal moment that would inform portrait painting in Italy for the next generation.