Lorenzo Lotto

Lorenzo Lotto (c. 1480–1556) was born in Venice but spent much of his career away from it, working in Treviso, the Marche, Rome and above all Bergamo, where between 1513 and 1525 he had his most productive years. Little is known of his training. The influence of Giovanni Bellini is clear in his early pictures, and that of Giorgione in his portraits. He painted mainly altarpieces, devotional pictures and portraits, and in his portraits he developed a psychological portrait that revealed the thoughts and emotions of the sitter. His individual style was never as admired in Venice, where Titian dominated, as in the other towns where he worked, and he spent his last decades moving between them in search of commissions. In 1552 he became a lay brother at the Holy Sanctuary of Loreto, where he died, and he was almost forgotten afterwards. Three works here: The Recanati Annunciation, Madonna and Child with Saint Roch and Saint Sebastian, and Saint Christopher with Saints Roch and Sebastian.