Five Early Renaissance Portraits

Abstract

Among the earliest surviving examples of early Renaissance portraiture are a group of five portraits of men in profile. The portrait of Matteo Olivieri, which is in the Mellon Collection at the National Gallery in Washington (Fig. 9), and the portrait of his son, Michele, now in a private collection (Fig. 10), are attributed to Domenico Veneziano. Two other portraits in the group are ascribed at present to Masaccio: one is in the Mellon Collection at the National Gallery (Fig. 11), the other in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum at Boston (Fig. 23). The last of the portraits, located in the Musée des Beaux-Arts at Chambéry, is generally accepted as a work by Paolo Uccello (Fig. 12).