Antonello da Messina

Early life and training

Antonello was born at Messina around 1429–1431, to Garita (Margherita) and Giovanni de Antonio Mazonus, a sculptor who trained him early on. He and his family resided in the Sicofanti district of the city.
Antonello is thought to have apprenticed in Rome before going to Naples, where Netherlandish painting was then fashionable. According to a letter written in 1524 by the Neapolitan humanist Pietro Summonte, in about 1450 Antonello was a pupil of the painter Niccolò Colantonio in Naples. This account of his training is accepted by most art historians.

Early career
Antonello returned to Messina from Naples during the 1450s. In around 1455, he painted the so-called Sibiu Crucifixion, inspired by Flemish treatments of the subject, which is now in the Muzeul de Artă in Bucharest. A Crucifixion in the Royal Museum of Antwerp dates from the same period. These early works show a marked Flemish influence, which is now understood to be inspired by his master Colantonio and by paintings by Rogier van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck that belonged to Colantonio's patron, Alfonso V of Aragon.

In his biography of the artist, Giorgio Vasari remarked that Antonello saw an oil painting by Van Eyck (the Lomellini Tryptych) belonging to King Alfonso V of Aragon at Naples and consequently introduced oil painting to Italy. Recent evidence indicates that an "Antonello di Sicilia" (di Sicilia meaning 'from Sicily') was in contact with Van Eyck's most accomplished follower, Petrus Christus, in Milan in early 1456. It appears likely that this was, in fact, Antonello da Messina, as this would explain why he was one of the first Italians to master Eyckian oil painting, and why Petrus Christus was the first Netherlandish painter to learn Italian linear perspective.…

Antonello's style is remarkable for its union of Italian simplicity with Flemish concern for detail. He exercised an enormous influence on Italian painting, not only by the introduction of the Flemish invention, but also by the transmission of Flemish tendencies. However, no school of painting formed after his death, with the exception of the Sicilian Marco Costanzo.

Sibiu Crucifixion (1455) - Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu
Abraham Served by the Angels - Museo della Magna Grecia, Reggio Calabria
Portrait of a Man (1460s) - Oil on wood, Civic Museums, Pavia
Ecce Homo (c. 1470) - Tempera and oil on panel, 42.5 x 30.5 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
Ecce Homo (1470) - Tempera and oil on panel, 40 x 33 cm, Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola, Genoa
St. Jerome Penitent - Various techniques on wood, 40.2 x 30.2 cm, Museo della Magna Grecia, Reggio Calabria
San Gregorio Polyptych (1473) - Tempera on panel, 194 x 202 cm, Regional Museum, Messina
Ecce Homo (c. 1473) - Tempera on panel, 19.5 x 14.3 cm, Private collection, New York City
Portrait of a Man (1474) - Oil on wood, Staatliche Museen, Berlin
Madonna with Child (Salting Madonna) - Oil on wood, 43.2 x 34.3 cm, National Gallery, London
Portrait of a Man (1474) - Oil on wood, 32 x 26 cm, Staatliche Museen, Berlin
Annunciation (1474) - Oil on panel, 180 x 180 cm, Bellomo Palace Regional Gallery, Syracuse
St. Jerome in His Study (c. 1474) - Oil on wood, 46 x 36,5 cm, National Gallery, London
Ecce Homo (1475) - Oil on panel, 48.5 x 38 cm, Collegio Alberoni, Piacenza
Portrait of a Man (Il Condottiere) (1475) - Oil on wood, 35 x 38 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris
Crucifixion (1455) - Oil on panel 52.5 x 42.5 cm, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp
Crucifixion (1475) - Wood, 42 x 25,5 cm, National Gallery, London
Portrait of a Man (c. 1475) - Oil on wood, Galleria Borghese, Rome
Portrait of a Man (c. 1475) - Oil on panel, 36 x 25 cm, National Gallery, London
Portrait of a Man (1475–1476) - Oil on panel, 28 x 21 cm, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
San Cassiano Altarpiece (1475–76) - Oil on panel, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The Dead Christ Supported by an Angel…