'Two Heads, after Bellini', 1866
Butler’s early paintings revealed his admiration for the Italian Renaissance artist Giovanni Bellini, who he considered a ‘genuine’ Pre-Raphaelite (as opposed to the painters of the Victorian ‘Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’). In this painting Butler playfully juxtaposes his modern-looking models with the Italianized, fifteenth-century-style landscape.
The original oil painting now hangs in the Bursary in St John’s.