Antonello da Messina

Antonello da Messina (c. 1430-1479) painted people who seem about to speak: his Portrait of a Man, known in Italy as the Unknown Sailor, has been smiling ironically at viewers for more than five centuries. A Sicilian, he had studied Flemish painting, with its oil technique and its care for every detail, and joined it to the measure and space of Italian painting. In 1475 and 1476 he worked in Venice, where his San Cassiano Altarpiece struck the city's painters.

In this collection you will find the Virgin Annunciate in Palermo, with the Madonna raising her hand towards us, the Portrait of a Man (the Unknown Sailor), Saint Jerome in his Study in the National Gallery in London, the Trivulzio Portrait, the Salvator Mundi and the San Cassiano Altarpiece, printed on handmade Amalfi paper.

In Venice his lesson was taken up by Giovanni Bellini; for the Flemish masters he learned from, see Jan van Eyck.