A Man with a Pair of Dividers (?)
- Artist: Gentile Bellini
- Date: about 1500
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Museum: The National Gallery
- Collection record: The National Gallery website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is "A Man with a Pair of Dividers (?)". Painted by Gentile Bellini, this portrait is unusual among his works because the identity of the sitter remains unknown. Most of Gentile's surviving portraits are of well-known figures, but this one stands out as an exception.
The background is very dark, which makes the sitter's face and hands stand out even more. It's worth noting that Gentile usually took great pains to express the qualities of varying surfaces in paint and enjoyed painting different kinds of materials and jewels, but here we see a lack of detail.
This portrait was once thought to be of the mathematician Girolamo Malatini because he holds a pair of dividers, which led to the idea that it was a portrait of a man who taught Gentile's brother and another Venetian painter how to incorporate theories of perspective into their paintings. However, it's also suggested that this could be a portrait of Giovanni Bellini himself.
The painting is done in oil on canvas and dates back to about 1500. The simplicity of the image might suggest a more humble and familiar sitter – perhaps Gentile's brother? But we can't be sure, as the presence of the dividers and the emphasis on the man's hands could indicate someone who valued the creative force of their hands in their work.
See it in person
A Man with a Pair of Dividers (?) hangs in The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
