Edward Solly (25 April 1776 – 2 December 1844) was an English merchant living in Berlin, who amassed an unprecedented collection of Italian Trecento and Quattrocento paintings and outstanding examples of Early Netherlandish painting, at a time when those schools were still largely unappreciated.
The Renaissance style came directly from Italy during the Quattrocento to Hungary foremost in the Central European region.
Quattrocento encompasses the artistic styles of the late Middle Ages (most notably International Gothic) and the early Renaissance.
It provides a unique example of an early fifteenth-century Northern Renaissance illuminator's response to Milanese art of the late Quattrocento.
He was born in San Giovanni Bianco in the Val Brembana, and painted from 1509-1527, in a style more reminiscent of the Quattrocento.
Marcel Durliat believes that though the expressionism in this painting is evidence of a Germanic artistic tradition, Bru's Quattrocento depiction of the standing figures in contemporary dress, as well as other details, indicate that the painter may have lived or studied in Northern Italy before moving to Barcelona.
He was very much inspired by painters of the Italian quattrocento, most notably the work of Piero della Francesca.