Head of a Man (Alfonso I d’Este)
Artist/Maker
DatesMade: probably 17th century
Material / Technique
DimensionsMått 42 cm h x w x d: Ram 50 x 50 x 3 cm
Inventory numberNM 147
AcqusitionTransferred 1866 from Kongl. Museum (Martelli 1804)
Other titlesTitle (sv): Porträtt av en ung man Title (en): Head of a Man (Alfonso I d’Este) Previous: Portrait of a Young Man
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 16: FORMER INV. NOS.: 412 (M. 1796–97); 160 (F. 1798); 398 (M. 1804); KM 994. TECHNICAL NOTES: The support consists of a single hardwood board. It is not bevelled, and there are tool marks on the verso. The wood is worm-eaten. A thin, red-brown ground covers the whole support. The paint layers are thinly applied and partly abraded. The varnish is yellowed. The painting is in good condition. Documented restoration: 1972: Cleaning of the surface. Retouching. Varnishing. PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804. BIBLIOGRAPHY: NM Cat. 1867, p. 10 (as Reni, school of); Sander 1872–76, III, p. 130, no. 398 (as Caravaggio); NM Cat. 1990, p. 421 (as anonymous, 17th century); Prytz and Eriksson 2010, pp. 77–86. This man is portrayed in a shiny cuirass and a beret with a yellow feather and a significant gold medal attached. He is depicted almost in profile, recalling the representations of donors that appear so frequently in Renaissance altarpieces. The profile portrait was originally reserved for princes, and the cuirass in combination with the medal on the beret implies that this is a possible portrait of a Renaissance prince. On the other hand, this genre of young men in armour and plumed berets is a frequent theme in the paintings of Caravaggio and his followers, especially Angelo Caroselli, Bartolomeo Manfredi and members of the Utrecht school: Dirck van Baburen, Gerrit van Honthorst and Henrick Terbruggen.¹ The medal can possibly help us to interpret who is represented in this portrait. Because, unlike the other tondi in this series (NM 146, NM 148 and NM 7268, cat. nos. 15, 17–18), this head looks more like a proper portrait. And although it is difficult to identify the woman depicted on the medal, it is very close to the medals of Lucrezia Borgia (1480–1519). She was the consort of the Marquis Alfonso I d’Este (1476–1534), and we know of very similar representations by Dosso Dossi of the latter’s father Ercole I d’Este, now in the Galleria Estense in Modena, and a possible portrait of his son Ercole II d’Este in the Nationalmuseum (NM 2163). It may seem dubious to identify a sitter based simply on a medal and similarities with portraits of other family members, but this seems to be a recurring portrait genre at the d’Este court and it is reasonable to suggest that the present painting is a copy of a portrait of a d’Este prince. JE 1 Anders Bengtsson, unpublished paper, Gotland University, 2010. [END]
Motif categoryPortrait
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
Keyword
External links