VIVARINI, Antonio

Italian painter, part of a family of painters. Antonio seldom worked independently. He collaborated first with his brother-in-law, Giovanni d’Alemagna, and secondly with his own younger brother, Bartolomeo. Because of the collective nature of much Vivarini workshop activity, connoisseurs have remained unusually confused about Antonio’s work, and attributions, particularly as regards his late work, are often misleading. Their pictures usually took the form of large-scale polyptychs with stiff, archaic-looking figures and very elaborate carved and gilded frames in the Gothic tradition. After Giovanni d’Alemagna’s death in 1450, Antonio probably continued to produce independent works; from c. 1460 he ran the workshop alone.