Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio (or Beltraffio) (1466 or 1467 – 1516) was an Italian painter of the

High Renaissance In art history, the High Renaissance was a short period of the most exceptional artistic production in the Italian states, particularly Rome, capital of the Papal States, and in Florence, during the Italian Renaissance. Most art historians stat ...

from Lombardy, who worked in the studio of

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...

. Boltraffio and

Bernardino Luini Bernardino Luini (c. 1480/82 – June 1532) was a north Italian painter from Leonardo's circle during the High Renaissance. Both Luini and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio were said to have worked with Leonardo directly; he was described as having ...

are the strongest artistic personalities to emerge from Leonardo's studio. According to

Giorgio Vasari Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work '' The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp ...

, he was of an aristocratic family and was born in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

Paintings

Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio - Portrait of a boy as saint Sebastian - Google Art Project

His major painting of the 1490s is the ''Resurrection'' (painted with fellow da Vinci pupil

Marco d'Oggiono Marco d'Oggiono (c. 1470 – c. 1549) was an Italian Renaissance painter and a chief pupil of Leonardo da Vinci, many of whose works he copied.Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Marco D'Oggione", ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' (New York: Robert Appl ...

and now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin). A ''Madonna and Child'' in the

Museo Poldi Pezzoli The Museo Poldi Pezzoli is an art museum in Milan, Italy. It is located near the Teatro alla Scala, on Via Manzoni 12. The museum was originated in the 19th century as a private collection of Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli (1822–1879) and his m ...

of Milan, is one of the high points of the Lombard

Quattrocento The cultural and artistic events of Italy during the period 1400 to 1499 are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento (, , ) from the Italian word for the number 400, in turn from , which is Italian for the year 1400. The Quattrocento encom ...

. His portraits, often in profile, and his half-length renderings of the

Madonna and Child In art, a Madonna () is a representation of Mary, either alone or with her child Jesus. These images are central icons for both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The word is (archaic). The Madonna and Child type is very prevalent i ...

are Leonardesque in conception, though the clean hard edges of his outlines lack Leonardo's '' sfumato''. In

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...

, where he remained in 1500-1502, he found sympathetic patrons in the Casio family, of whom he painted several portraits and for whom he produced his masterwork, the ''Pala Casio'' for the Church of the Misericordia (Louvre Museum); it depicts a ''Madonna and Child with John the Baptist and Saint Sebastian and two Kneeling

Donors A donor in general is a person, organization or government which donates something voluntarily. The term is usually used to represent a form of pure altruism, but is sometimes used when the payment for a service is recognized by all parties as r ...

'', Giacomo Marchione de' Pandolfi da Casio and his son, the Bolognese poet Girolamo Casio, who mentioned Boltraffio in some of his sonnets. Boltraffio's portrait of Girolamo Casio is at the

Pinacoteca di Brera The Pinacoteca di Brera ("Brera Art Gallery") is the main public gallery for paintings in Milan, Italy. It contains one of the foremost collections of Italian paintings from the 13th to the 20th century, an outgrowth of the cultural program of ...

, Milan. The standard monograph is Maria Teresa Fiorio, ''Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio: Un pittore milanese nel lume di Leonardo.'' (Milan and Rome) 2000.

Selected works with disputed attribution

*''Portrait of a Young Woman with a Scorpion Chain'',

Columbia Museum of Art The Columbia Museum of Art is an art museum in the American city of Columbia, South Carolina. History The Columbia Museum of Art was originally in the 1908 private residence of the city's Taylor family. Located on Senate Street in Columbia, adj ...

. Formerly assigned to the Louvre's Master of the ''Vierge aux Balances'', the handsome ''Portrait of a Young Woman with a Scorpion Chain'' now in the Samuel H. Kress Collection of the Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC has been reattributed to the hand of Boltraffio and dated to the period 1490-1505. Whether or not Leonardo participated in its design remains uncertain. *'' Madonna Litta'', ( Hermitage,

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, sometimes attributed to

). *''Holy family'', (

National Gallery in Prague The National Gallery Prague ( cz, Národní galerie Praha, NGP), formerly the National Gallery in Prague (), is a state-owned art gallery in Prague, which manages the largest collection of art in the Czech Republic and presents masterpieces of Cze ...

, probably a copy after the unknown original). *''Virgin and child with donor'', (Rome, Sant´Onofrio, Museo del Tasso, sometimes attributed to

Cesare da Sesto Cesare da Sesto (1477–1523) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance active in Milan and elsewhere in Italy. Life Cesare da Sesto was born in Sesto Calende, Lombardy. He is considered one of the ''Leonardeschi'' or artists influenced by Leo ...

). *''Portrait of a Man'', (

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the ...

), probably by Ambrogio de Predis. *''Virgin and Child'' is at the National Gallery in London. *The ''

Salvator Mundi , Latin for Saviour of the World, is a subject in iconography depicting Christ with his right hand raised in blessing and his left hand holding an orb (frequently surmounted by a cross), known as a . The latter symbolizes the Earth, and the wh ...

'' from the workshop of Leonardo was attributed wholly to Boltraffio up to 2011 and some scholars continued to believe he contributed to it. By 2017 however, the consensus in the art world was that it was a Leonardo da Vinci work, although art historian Matthew Landrus maintained that the master contributed only about five to 20% of the painting with assistants such as Bernardino Luini producing the balance. Carmen Bambach of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

however, continued to maintain that the work was mostly painted by Boltraffio with "small retouchings" by the master.

Notes

References

* Mack, Charles R., ''European Art in the Columbia Museum of Art including the Samuel H. Kress Collection. Volume I: the Thirteenth through the Sixteenth Century'', Columbia, SC: Univ. of South Carolina Press,2009, cat. #19, pp. 135–39.
Brief biography
from National Gallery of Art entry.

on Boltraffio.
''Pala Casio''
at

Louvre Museum The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

.
''Madonna and Child''
1495) at

, Milan.
''Madonna and Child''
at

Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest The Museum of Fine Arts ( hu, Szépművészeti Múzeum �seːpmyveːsɛti ˈmuːzɛum is a museum in Heroes' Square, Budapest, Hungary, facing the Palace of Art. It was built by the plans of Albert Schickedanz and Fülöp Herzog in an eclecti ...

.
''Portrait of Girolamo Casio''
(1500–1502) at

, Milan.
''Portrait of a Youth''
at National Gallery of Art,

Washington DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

.
''Portrait of a Man'' and 2 renditions of ''Madonna and Child''
(one of the latter by a follower of Boltraffio) at National Gallery, London.
(Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, CA) ''Youth Holding an Arrow''.
The sitter portrayed crowned with a laurel-entwined fillet, is likely to be the poet, Girolamo Casio.

Gallery of Boltraffio artworks.
Database:
Photo repertory of Boltraffio.

External links

*
''Leonardo da Vinci: anatomical drawings from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle''
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Boltraffio (see index)
Painters of reality : the legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Boltraffio (see index) {{DEFAULTSORT:Boltraffio, Giovanni Antonio 1460s births 1516 deaths 15th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 16th-century Italian painters Painters from Milan Italian Renaissance painters