Portrait of a Boy

This painting was initially attributed to Antonello da Messina, then to Andrea Solario, Alvise Vivarini and Giovanni Bellini. Most of the pictures today widely accepted to be by Jacometto have undergone similar vicissitudes.

The mysterious Jacometto is an artist who is hard to classify, not least because of the extent and range of influences of other artists that are traceable in his oeuvre. Jacometto must have known the realistic and Netherlandish-influenced portraiture of Antonello da Messina, who traveled to Venice in 1475-76: the Portrait of a Boy evinces a very immediate reaction to Antonello. Jacometto was also stylistically indebted to Giovanni Bellini. But the type of picture Jacometto produced is very particular, since he is known also to have been a miniaturist. Almost all his surviving portraits are very small indeed, often much smaller than life-size.