Cartellino

A cartellino (Italian for "small piece of paper"[1]) is an illusionistic portrayal of a written note included in painting, mostly from the with a legend that records the name of the artist, the date, the subject, or some other relevant information about the work.

It usually takes the form of a fictive rectangular scrap of parchment or paper – sometimes with frayed edges, creased or torn – which is depicted as being attached with a pin or wax to a surface that lies parallel to the picture plane, perhaps a foreground parapet or a background wall.

Other early examples include Andrea Mantegna's 1448 painting of St Mark, and Marco Zoppo's Wimborne Madonna of c.1455.

Later examples include Carlo Crivelli's c.1480 Lenti Madonna, Giovanni Bellini's 1501–1502 Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan and Jacopo de' Barbari's 1504 Still-Life with Partridge and Gauntlets.

In her 2009 PhD thesis, Kandice Rawlings distinguishes the cartellino from other written element including in a painting, such as depictions of inscriptions in stone or on wooden plaques, or writing in books held by subjects, or on streamers or banderoles.