Giovanni Bellini is considered the founder of the
Venetian School of Painting. He raised Venice to a centre of Renaissance
art that rivalled Florence and Rome.
A great landscape painter, Bellini was recognised
for his extraordinary ability to use colour in the portrayal of
light.
The painting, Madonna and Child with Saints Peter
and Paul, was once owned by Dawson Turner, the 19th century collector
and patron of the arts, who lived in Great Yarmouth.
Andrew Moore, keeper of art and senior curator
with the Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service is enthusiastic
about the hanging of Bellini's work at Norwich Castle: "Giovanni
Bellini's beautiful altarpiece is a fine example of Venetian Renaissance
painting.
"I am delighted that the painting is coming
back to Norfolk as Norwich Castle's contribution to the Centenary
of the National Art Collections Fund.
"The fact that Great Yarmouth was home to
a thriving community of passionate art collectors in the first half
of the 1800s is practically forgotten now.
"Paintings that once hung in Great Yarmouth
are now in some of the greatest art collections - such as the National
Gallery and the Wallace Collection in London.
"Dawson Turner, the Great Yarmouth banker,
owned this painting at the time when he employed both John Crome
and John Sell Cotman as Drawing Masters for his daughters.
"The altarpiece will be hung in the context
of some of Cotman's finest oil paintings."
The Great Yarmouth Bellini returns to Norfolk on
special loan from Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery to celebrate
the centenary of the National Art Collections Fund.
Picture credit: The Madonna and
Child enthroned with Saint Peter and Saint Paul and a Donor Giovanni
Bellini (c.1435-1516) Courtesy Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery.
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