Head of a Man
Artist/Maker
DatesMade: Made probably 17th century
Material / Technique
DimensionsMått 42 cm h x w x d: Ram 51 x 51 x 3 cm
Inventory numberNM 148
AcqusitionTransferred 1866 from Kongl. Museum (Martelli 1804)
Other titlesTitle (sv): Porträtt av en ung man Title (en): Head of a Man Previous: Portrait of a Young Man
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 17: FORMER INV. NOS.: 414 (M. 1796–97); 162 (F. 1798); 407 (M. 1804); KM 1007. TECHNICAL NOTES: The support is a single hardwood board. The panel has been thinned, its thickness varying between 0.5 and 1 cm. The painting is cropped and the panel is partly cradled. The worm-eaten panel has been stabilized by a thick wax immersion. The ground is thin and reddish-brown. There is some tendency to flaking along the wood grain of the panel. Apart from that, the paint layer is fairly well preserved. UV fluorescence reveals some retouches in the background. The varnish is yellowed. PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Martelli 1804; Sander 1872–76, III, p. 131, no. 407(as Caravaggio); Prytz and Eriksson 2010, pp. 77–86. A young man dressed in a white garment turns his head and eyes upwards as if looking into heaven. The composition seems familiar, and there are several similar representations of young men, especially saints, painted by Guido Reni and his followers.¹ An important example is the St Sebastian in the Prado (inv. no. 211) by Guido, and another example is an angel in the dome of the Capella del Santissimo Sacramento in Ravenna by his follower Francesco Gessi.² The fact that the young man depicted in this tondo is dressed in a white cloak or tunic and lacks a halo indicates that he may not be a biblical figure, and that this is certainly not St Sebastian. The format and the composition of the painting indicate that it is a copy of a detail from a larger painting by Guido or one of his followers, but as long as we do not know of an original for this work it is impossible to establish a hypothesis as to whom it may represent. This painting is executed in a different technique and with more diffuse brushstrokes than its companions, but this does not rule out the possibility of it being painted by the same hand as the others. JE 1 See Spear 1997. 2 This has been pointed out by Greger Sundin, [END]
Motif categoryPortrait
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
Keyword
External links