page_title: Pisanello
section_title: Portraits and medalmaking
hierarchical_section_title: Pisanello / Portraits and medalmaking
context_page_description: Pisanello, known professionally as Antonio di Puccio Pisano or Antonio di Puccio da Cereto, also erroneously called Vittore Pisano by Giorgio Vasari, was one of the most distinguished painters of the early Italian Renaissance and Quattrocento. He was acclaimed by poets such as Guarino da Verona and praised by humanists of his time, who compared him to such illustrious names as Cimabue, Phidias and Praxiteles.
  Pisanello is known for his resplendent frescoes in large murals, elegant portraits, small easel pictures, and many brilliant drawings. He is the most important commemorative portrait medallist in the first half of the 15th century, and he can claim to have originated this important genre.
  He was employed by the Doge of Venice, the Pope in the Vatican and the courts of Verona, Ferrara, Mantua, Milan, Rimini, and by the King of Naples. He stood in high esteem in the Gonzaga and Este families.
  Pisanello had many of his works wrongly ascribed to other artists such as Piero della Francesca, Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci, to name a few. While most of his paintings have perished, a good many of his drawings and medals have survived.
context_section_description: From 1435, Pisanello became more and more interested in portraiture and medalmaking. He was introduced to Leonello d'Este, Marquess of Ferrara. His famous Portrait of an Este Princess dates from this period.
  Pisanello's The Vision of Saint Eustace, now at the National Gallery in London, long ascribed to Albrecht Dürer because of its perfection of this very fine panel, shows most animals in profile or defined poses with miniature-like delicacy. The story in this small painting (egg tempera on wood) is probably only a pretext for showing "noble" animals (horses, hunting dogs, stag, bear...) and the most noble creature of all: the hunting courtier.
  In 1439, the Council of Florence negotiated with the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos. On this occasion Pisanello struck a commemorative medal of the emperor, the earliest portrait medal of post-classical times. He also made some drawings with portraits of the emperor and his retinue (Louvre and Chicago), suggesting he had a commission for a painting or fresco for the Este residence.
  Pisanello thus became the inventor of the fields of portrait medals and related medallic art. During his lifetime Pisanello was best known for his medals.  He has been copied many times in later generations. The medalist art declined when it deviated from the art of Pisanello. Before him, the few medals made were struck like minted coins. Pisanello, on the other hand, melted his medals the same as a bronze low-relief, clearly showing the work of a painter and a modeler. He even signed his medals with Opus Pisani pictoris (made by the painter Pisano). In his view the portraits in his medals equal the portraits in his paintings. He even adds allegories at the reverse of his medals, such as the unicorn in the Cecilia Gonzaga medal, underlying the noble character of the princess.
caption: The Vision of Saint Eustace, c. 1438–1442.
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