Sebastiano del piombo biography of abraham

Biography

Sebastiano del Piombo (originally Sebastiano Luciani), Venetian painter, active mainly in Rome. According to Vasari, he trained with Giovanni Bellini, but his early work was most strongly influenced by Giorgione, whose Three Philosophers (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) Sebastiano is said to have completed after the master's death.

Their styles, indeed, can be so close as to cause paintings to be disputed between them, most notably the unfinished Judgment of Solomon (National Trust, Kingston Lacy). This large and impressive work was attributed to Giorgione by Ridolfi, but scholarly opinion now increasingly tends towards giving it to Sebastiano.

The half-length Salome (or Judith?) (National Gallery, London, 1510) shows the magnificent painterly skills of an undoubted work of Sebastiano at this date; it has a sensuous beauty reminiscent of Giorgione, but also a statuesque grandeur that is Sebastiano's own.

In 1511 Sebastiano moved to Rome on the invitation of the ban