Andrea Previtali

(b Berbenno, nr Bergamo, c. 1480; d Bergamo, 1528). Italian painter. He is first recorded in 1502, when he signed and dated a Virgin and Child with Donor (Padua, Mus. Civ.), stating in the inscription that he was a 'disciple' of Giovanni Bellini. The painting confirms this description but is exceptionally forward-looking for its date, foreshadowing Palma Vecchio and Titian in the amplitude of the forms, and perhaps reflecting Giorgione's influence in the free and painterly rendering of the landscape. In other approximately contemporary signed paintings of the Virgin and Child (such as that in Detroit, MI, Inst. A.), figures deriving in pose and type from Bellini are similarly set against landscapes whose darker and more sylvan character recalls Giorgione.

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