Bartolomeo's brother
Antonio Vivarini, and his nephew (also possibly his pupil)
Alvise Vivarini, were also painters. He learned
oil painting from
Antonello da Messina, and is said to have produced, in 1473, the first oil picture done in
Venice. Housed in the basilica of
San Zanipolo, it is a large altar-piece in nine divisions, representing
Augustine and other saints. Most of his works, however, are in
tempera. His outline is always hard, and his colour good; the figures have much dignified and devout expression. As "vivarino" means in Italian a
goldfinch, he sometimes drew a goldfinch as the signature of his pictures. The
Getty Museum,
Harvard University Art Museums, the
Honolulu Museum of Art, the
Louvre, the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the
National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), the
National Gallery, London, the
New Orleans Museum of Art, the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana (Milan), Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna,
Pinacoteca Provinciale di Bari, the
Rijksmuseum and the
Uffizi are among the public collections holding works by Bartolomeo Vivarini. ==Gallery==