Francesco II Gonzaga, Fourth Marquis of Mantua, c. 1474/1480

Not on View

Medium

tempera on poplar panel

Dimensions

overall: 26.5 x 21 cm (10 7/16 x 8 1/4 in.)

framed: 49.5 x 44.5 cm (19 1/2 x 17 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1943.4.41

Artists / Makers

Baldassare d'Este (painter) Ferrarese, 1432 - after 1506

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

by unknown hand, over the boy's head in black: FRANC MAR M IIII (Francesco, Fourth Marquis of Mantua)

Provenance

Quincy Shaw, Boston.[1] (Schoenemann Galleries, Inc., New York); sold 24 July 1940 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1943 to NGA.

[1] Lionello Venturi, writing to Mr. Schoenemann on 28 March 1940 (copy of letter in NGA curatorial files), informs him that "Your picture was formerly in the collection of the late Mr. J. Quincy Shaw, Boston." This is likely to be Quincy Adams Shaw (1826-1908)--the "J" repeating an error made in Bernard Berenson's Venetian Painters of the Renaissance (1894), where Shaw is listed in an index as the owner of three paintings. Quincy Shaw, brother of the famed Union army officer Robert Gould Shaw, was a Boston businessman whose collection of art included Italian renaissance sculpture and paintings, nineteenth-century French paintings and drawings, and Japanse decorative arts.

[2] The bill of sale from Schoenemann to the Kress Foundation (copy in NGA curatorial files) describes the painting as "'Portrait Of A Young Man' profile, blue background, by Ercole da Ferrara, also known as Ercole Roberti." See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/840.

Associated Names

Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Schoenemann Galleries, Inc.
Shaw, Quincy

Bibliography

1944: Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: repro. no. 88

1945: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 82, repro., as by Ercole Roberti.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 120, repro., as by Ercole Roberti.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 9.

1966: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 83, fig. 231.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 3, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 16, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:22-23; 2:pl. 14, as by Baldassarre d'Este.

1980: Ragghianti, Carlo L. “Galleria di Washington.” Critica d’Arte 45, nos. 154-156 (1980): 217, as by Gian Francesco de' Maineri.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 35, repro.

2003: Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 47-50, color repro.