Works by Giorgione

Giorgione signed none of his paintings and died of plague in his thirties, and scholars still argue over which pictures are his, above all the portraits and the landscapes with figures.

He came from Castelfranco, about 40 km inland from Venice, and probably trained in the city under Giovanni Bellini. Many of his pictures tell no particular story, or let the action fall away and keep only a mood, as music might. In The Three Philosophers a seated young man with a set square looks toward a dark cliff and cave, while a man in a turban and a bearded elder in yellow stand at his side. Even this one is disputed, and an early Venetian collector, Marcantonio Michiel, wrote that Sebastiano del Piombo finished it.

Laura alone carries his name and a date, 1 June 1506, on its back, possibly added by another hand. She is set against dark laurel leaves, a red cloak lined with fur held open over one breast. Michiel also named the Young Man with Arrow, a youth with a mass of curls in a red wrap, holding the arrow upright at the edge of the panel.

Other pictures have been taken from him and handed back. The Adoration of the Shepherds in Washington split the dealer Lord Duveen, who sold it as a Giorgione, from his expert Bernard Berenson, who called it an early Titian. One scholar gave Il Tramonto to Giulio Campagnola. Everything below is a painting from the 1500s, mostly portraits and religious scenes in warm browns, and for many of them the name is a considered guess.

Sources: Wikipedia, Kunsthistorisches Museum.