Page:Bryan's dictionary of painters and engravers, volume 1.djvu/176

 sent by King William Frederick IV. to South America in 1842, whence he brought back some three hundred sketches, now in the National Gallery at Berlin. He was appointed Professor of the Academy there in 18G6, and made a second tour through Italy eleven years later ; dying in 1889, aged 75.

BELLERS, William, an English landscape painter, was a frequent contributor of ' Sunsets,' &c., to the exhibitions at the Society of Arts ; and in 1774 published with Boydell a series of views of the 'Cumberland Lakes.' Some of his land- scapes were etched by Canot and other French engravers.

BELLEVOIS, H., (or Bellvoe,) was a painter of marine subjects, seaports, and storms at sea. It is not mentioned by whom he was instructed, but his style of painting indicates that W. van de Velde and Backhuisen were his models. He re- sided at Hamburg, where he died in 1684.

BELLI, Jacques. See Belly.

BELLI, Marco, a follower of the Bellini, lived in the early part of the 16th century : of his life or death nothing certain is known, excepting that he is the painter of a ' Circumcision ' in the Rovigo Gallery.

BELLIER, Jean FRANgois Marir, portrait painter to Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, was born in Paris in 1745. He painted the panels of the carriage for tlie coronation of Louis XV^I., and worked with Barthelemy upon the ceilings of the Louvre. He died in Paris in 1836.

BELLIN, Samuei^ was born in 1799, at Doctors Commons, in the City of London. He was the son of John Bellin of Chigwell in Essex, and was articled to Basire the engraver ; after serving his time with this master he went to Rome, where he studied and painted for some years, in company with Thorwaldsen, Turner, Bartlett, Geddes, and other artists. Returning to England in 1831 he commenced line engraving ; later, however, he adopted mixed mezzotint, executing many plates from pictures by Frank Stone, Herbert, William Hunt, Eastlake, Horsley, Marshall Claxton, Courbald and others. Bellin was also successful with copies of many portraits of eminent persons living in the earlier part of the 19th century. He retired from the profession in 1889, and died in 1893. The sale of Samuel Bellin's prints and plates took place at Christie's, on March 30, 1894. g. g,

BELLINI, Bellini. See Belliniano.

BELLINI, FiLiPPO, was a native of Urbino, and flourished about the year 1594. Almost un- noticed in the history of art, he is stated by Lanzi to have possessed uncommon capacity. He was a follower of the style of Federigo Baroccio, and one of the most successful of his imitators, as appears in his picture of the 'Circumcision,' in the Basilica of Loretto, and in the ' Marriage of the Virgin,' in the cathedral at Ancona. Amongst his most im- portant works are fourteen pictures of the works of ' Charity,' in the Chiesa dellaCariti at Fabriano, and the ' Martyrdom of St. Gaudenzio,' in the Conventuali di M. Alboddo.

BELLINI, Gentile, was the son of Jacopo (q.v.). He was probably born in 1429, in Venice. He learned under his father, and, together with his brother, is mentioned as assisting him in various undertakings. By the year 1464 (according to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, History of Painting in North Italy, where authority for the date is, how- ever, undiscoverable) he received, as an independent master, the commission to paint the doors of the organ of St. Mark's. These panels show him to have become deeply imbued with the ideas of design adopted in the Paduan school, though there are still evidences of the early Venetian style. To the year 1465 belongs another public undertaking, that of the figure of the Patriarch Lorenzo Giust- iniani now in the Academy. This shows the severe and scholarly feeling for draughtsmanship which marks all Gentile's works In 1466 he was employed in large decorative designs illustrating the story of the Children of Israel for the "school" of St. Mark's, and already received payment at the same rate as his father. By 1469 his reputation was such that he received the title of Count of the Palatinate from the Emperor, and in 1474 we find him evidently regarded as the greatest artist in Venice, for in that year)he was appointed to restore, or rather repaint, the decorations of the Sala del Gran Consiglio in the Ducal Palace, and was rewarded with a sinecure in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. In 1479 we have a still further proof of his pre-eminent position, for in that year he was sent, at the expense of the State, to Constantinople, in accordance with the request made to the senate by the Sultan, Mehemet II., for the best painter in Venice. During his stay in the East he made drawings of the classical remains of Byzantium, and brought home a number of sketches of Eastern types which became stock motives with later Venetian painters. Of the portraits which he painted of the Sultan, he brought back one, which is now in Lady Layard's collection. It is dated 1480, and is signed by him with the addition of Knight, a title conferred on him by the Sultan. Gentile continued his father's connection with the "school" of St. Mark's, rising in 1492 to the position of guardian of the school. Of his few remaining works the most important were executed to decorate the walls of the schools of St. John the Evangelist and St. Mark. For the former be finished in 1494 the much-damaged picture of Pietro di Lodovico being cured by the relic of the cross. In 1496 he completed the great picture representing the procession of that relic in the Piazza of St. Mark's ; and in 1500 he executed for the same body the painting of the miraculous preservation of the relic on an occasion when the reliquary had fallen into a canal from a bridge over which it was being carried in procession. These pictures are all in the Academy at Venice. His last great undertaking for the school of St. Marlv's was the canvas representing the preaching of St. Murk at Alexandria, now in the Brera, which, at his death in 1507, he left to be completed by his brother. Gentile's fame as a painter has perhaps been somewhat eclipsed by that of his brother, but it is evident that in their lifetime he took the chief position in Venice. He was a profound student of perspective, and applied its rules with great success to the composition of his great historical scenes. The most famous of these was the series representing the story of the struggle with Barbarossa, which decorated the Ducal Palace. These all perished in the fire of 1577. Besides the works already mentioned there remain several smaller pieces by him ; a portrait of Catherine Cornaro at Buda Pesth, a bust of St. Mark at Frankfort (early), a large Madonna Enthroned in Mr. Mond's collection, St. Peter Martyr, the portrait of a Mathematician and the head of a monk in the National Gallery ; portrait of Doge Giovanni