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Giovanni Agostino della Torre and his Son, Niccolò
Lorenzo Lottoabout 1513-16
The National Gallery, London
London, United Kingdom
Giovanni Agostino della Torre, a Bergamo physician, is known to have died in 1535, aged 81. He was therefore 61 at the time this portrait was painted; the likeness of his son Niccolò was presumably added later by the painter.
The letter is inscribed: Dno Nicolao de la tur/re nobili bergom . . ./. . The foreground scroll is inscribed: Medicorum Esculapio/Joanni Augustino Ber/gomatj; amicosingmo/Bg.mj; on the book: Galienus.
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Details
- Title: Giovanni Agostino della Torre and his Son, Niccolò
- Creator: Lorenzo Lotto
- Date Created: about 1513-16
- Physical Dimensions: 85 x 68.2 cm
- Type: Painting
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- School: Italian
- More Info: Explore the National Gallery’s paintings online
- Inventory number: NG699
- Full Title: The Physician Giovanni Agostino della Torre and his Son, Niccolò
- Artist Dates: about 1480 - 1556/7
- Artist Biography: Lotto was one of the leading Venetian-trained painters of the earlier 16th century. He painted portraits and religious works exclusively. His early works are strongly influenced by Giovanni Bellini. Lotto was active in various places in Italy and absorbed a wide range of other influences, from Lombard realism to Raphael. He was deeply religious and his late paintings become intensely spiritual. Unable to compete with Titian, Lotto worked mainly outside Venice. He is recorded at Treviso in 1503, then in the Marches, and in Rome, probably in 1508. From 1513 to 1525 he resided mainly at Bergamo in Lombardy, where he painted several major altarpieces. A period in Venice from 1526, with long absences, was followed by his retirement to a religious establishment at Loreto in 1552. Lotto's later paintings are recorded in an account book and diary which he kept from 1538. His works are characterised by the use of deeply saturated colours, bold use of shadow, and a surprising expressive range, from the nearly caricatural to the lyrical. He is one of the most individualistic of the great Italian painters.
- Acquisition Credit: Bought, 1862
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