A Bird Perched on a Branch with Fruit
Andrea Mantegna
1460s (?)
Medium
pen and brown ink on laid paper
Dimensions
overall: 10.5 × 11.5 cm (4 1/8 × 4 1/2 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Andrew W. Mellon Fund
Accession Number
1976.33.1
About the Artist
Andrea Mantegna · 1431–1506
Andrea Mantegna was born around 1431 near Padua, in the Venetian Republic, the son of a carpenter. At approximately age eleven he was taken into the workshop of the Paduan painter and antiquities collector Francesco Squarcione, who enrolled him as a guild member and immersed him in the study of Roman sculpture and classical Latin. Though Mantegna later claimed that Squarcione had exploited his lab...