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The Visitation

Angelos Bitzamanos (Greek, 1467-1532) (Artist)

early 16th century (Early Modern)

Angelos Bitzamanos, the artist who signed this icon, is known to have been apprenticed in Candia (now Heraklion) on Crete in 1482. The island was ruled by Venice at that time, and Bitzamanos is subsequently attested as a painter in Dalmatia, another Venetian province. He is last heard of in Southern Italy, where the present icon was painted. Its composition (illustrating Luke 1:39-55) is untypical of traditional Byzantine art and was most probably borrowed from a woodcut illustration included in several Books of Hours that the German Thielman Kerver (fl. 1497-1524) printed in Paris between 1505 and 1511. The Walters owns yet another work by Bitzamanos, a triptych (Walters 37.626).

Inscription

[Transcription] Angelus Bizamanus Gr(a)ecus Ca(n)diotus pinxit a Otranto; [Translation] Angelus Bizamanus, a Greek from Candia, painted this in Otranto

Provenance

**Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.**

Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

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Geographies

Italy, Otranto (Place of Origin)

Measurements

9 1/16 x 7 1/16 in. (23 x 17.9 cm)

Credit Line

Acquired by Henry Walters with the Massarenti Collection, 1902

Location in Museum

Not on view

Accession Number

In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.

37.748

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