his portrait of 1435 advertises his newly acquired status.
Van Eyck served Philip and the court of Burgundy for
a sixteen-year stint that ended with his death in 1441.
It was during his tenure as artist of the court that van
Eyck developed the detailed, naturalistic style that had
such a great impact on all who followed him.
See also Van der Weyden, Rogier
Further Reading
Dhanens, Elisabeth. Hubert and Jan van Eyck. New York: Al-
pine, 1970.
Henbison, Craig. Jan van Eyck: The Play of Realism. London:
Reaktion, 1991.
Panofsky, Erwin. Early Netherlandish Painting. New York:
Harper and Row, 1971.
Snyder, James. Northern Renaissance Art. New York: Abrams,
1985.
Michelle I. Lapine
VENEZIANO, PAOLO (died c. 1362)
The earliest undisputed date for Paolo Veneziano is
1333, when he signed and dated a triptych, the Dormi-
tion of the Virgin, formerly at San Lorenzo in Vicenza
and now in the civic museum there. An art collector
in Venice mentions him in a memorandum of 1335.
His Madonna and Child Enthroned in the Crespi col-
lection in Milan is signed and dated August 1340. A
signed deposition by Paolo of March 1341 is in the
Venetian archives, where there was once a document
of September 1342 commissioning a throne for use in
a state festival from a painter named Paolo. This Paolo,
who appears to be the same artist, enjoyed offi cial sta-
tus at the time. In April 1345, Paolo and his sons Luca
and Giovanni signed and dated a panel used to protect
the enamel and gold Pala d’Oro on the high altar of
the basilica of San Marco. The cover, which is still in
place, depicts episodes from the legend of Saint Mark,
with half-fi gure saints and the Man of Sorrows above.
A Venetian archival document of January 1346 records
payment to Paolo fot an altarpiece for the chapel of Saint
Nicholas in the ducal palace; two scenes from the life
of Nicholas in the Soprintendenza at Florence may have
once belonged to it. An Enthroned Madonna and Child
at Carpineta in the Romagna bears Paolo’s signature and
the date 1347. A document of April 1352 in the archives
at Dubrovnik relates to an altarpiece by him which is
now lost. In 1358, Paolo and his son Giovanni signed
and dated the Coronation of the Virgin now in the Frick
Collection. Paolo died sometime between then and
September 1362, when a Venetian archival document
mentions him as deceased.
A large body of undocumented work is attributed
to Paolo and his workshop, which is known to have
included his sons Luca, Giovanni, and probably Marco,
and at least one other artist. This body of work may be
divided into two groups. One group falls within Paolo’s
documented career and is widely accepted, although
with differences of opinion concerning chronology
and autograph share; the other group is placed before
that and is controversial. Important works among the
former group are as follows: the votive tomb lunette of
Doge Francesco Dandolo in Santa Maria dei Frari in
Venice, painted around the time of the doge’s death in
October 1339; the Enthroned Madonna and Child with
angels and donors in the Accademia in Venice, probably
c. 1340; the polyptych from Santa Chiara in the same
museum, depicting the Coronation of the Virgin and
scenes from the lives of Christ, Saint Francis, and Saint
Clare, probably from the early 1340s; a dismembered
polyptych in San Giacomo Maggiore, Bologna, possi-
bly c. May 1344, when the church was consecrated; a
crucifi x in the church of Saint Dominic at Dubrovnik,
probably the one mentioned in a document of March
1348; dated polyptychs of 1349 at Chioggia, 1354 in the
Louvre, and April 1355 formerly at Piran in Istria; and
another late polyptych, dismembered, at San Severino
in the Marches.
The other group of works, which is a subject of
debate, should be attributed to Paolo’s early period.
It includes the panel masking the sarcophagus of the
Blessed Leo Bembo, dated 1321, once in San Sebas-
tiano, Venice, and now at Vodnjan in Istria; the dated
Coronation of the Virgin of 1324 in the National Gal-
lery in Washington; fi ve panels from the early life of
the Virgin and her parents at Pesaro; an altarpiece with
half-length Madonna and child and four scenes from
their lives in San Pantalon, Venice; sixteen panels from
the legend of Saint Ursula in the Volterra collection in
Florence; and a polyptych with an image and narrative
of Saint Lucy, originally in her church at Jurandor and
today in the bishop’s chancellery at Krk in Dalmatia.
The undated works were apparently done during the
1320s, in the order listed. The painted donor fi gures in
a wood relief of 1310 at Murano have also been ascribed
to Paolo, but they seem too early to have been painted
by him and may show the hand of his master. It also
has been suggested that Paolo and his workshop illu-
minated manuscripts and designed or executed mosaics
and embroideries.
Although a long Venetian mosaic tradition survived
into the fourteenth century, relatively little work on
panel or in the other pictorial media was produced in the
period immediately before Paolo. The traditional view
is that Paolo was the founder and fi rst great master of
Venetian Trecento painting, and this view would have to
be upheld unless the works assigned to him before his
documented activity are rejected. Some of these works,
particularly the panels at Pesaro, show the direct infl u-
ence of Giotto’s frescoes in nearby Padua; others, suchVENEZIANO, PAOLO