Paintings
Gentile earliest signed work is The Blessed Lorenzo Giustinian (1445), one of the oldest surviving oil paintings in Venice (now at the Accademia Museum). During the 1450s Bellini worked on a commission for the Scuola Grande di San Marco and painted in conjunction with his brother, Giovanni Bellini. From 1454 he was also the official portrait artist for the Doges of Venice, (for example, see image of the Doge Giovanni Mocenigo at right).
Much of Gentile Bellini’s surviving work consists of very large paintings for public buildings, including those for the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista. Along with Lazzaro Bastiani, Vittore Carpaccio, Giovanni Mansueti and Benedetto Rusconi, Bellini was one of the artists of hired to paint the 10-painting narrative cycle known as The Miracles of the Relic of the Cross. The commission was intended to celebrate the relic of the Holy Cross which the confraternity had received in 1369. Gentile's contributions include the Procession of the True Cross in Piazza San Marco, which dates from 1496, and the Miracle of the True Cross at the S. Lorenzo Bridge, dating from 1500 and featuring Gentile's self-portrait and that of his brother Giovanni.
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