Francesco II Gonzaga, Fourth Marquis of Mantua

c. 1474/1480

Baldassare d'Este

Painter, Ferrarese, 1432 - after 1506

Shown from the shoulders up, a pale-skinned boy faces the left in profile against a lapis-blue background in this vertical portrait painting. He stares steadily forward with brown eyes, rosy cheeks, and closed pink lips. His chin is pulled slightly down and back. The boy's brown hair falls from bangs across his forehead in a straight, diagonal line to the nape of his neck. He wears a brimless black cap with a high, rounded crown. His high-necked, black garment has gold, black, and pearl embellishments around the neckline and down the front. The collar is edged with white along the top.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on poplar panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • 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.)

  • Accession

    1943.4.41

Artwork history & notes

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

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.

1949

  • Ragghianti, Carlo L. “La Collezione S. H. Kress nella National Gallery of Art.” Critica d’Arte 8, no. 1 (May 1949): 82, fig. 63.

1955

  • Bargellesi, Giacomo. Notizie di opere d’arte ferrarese. Rovigo, 1955: 37-39, fig. 10, as by Antonio da Crevalcore.

1958

  • Calvesi, Maurizio. “Nuovi affreschi ferraresi dell’Oratorio della Concezione—1.” Bolletino d’Arte 43 (April-June 1958): 156.

1959

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

1960

  • Salmi, Mario. Ercole de' Roberti. Milan, 1960: 49, as not by Ercole de’ Roberti.

1962

  • Honour, Hugh. Review of Studies in the History of Art Dedicated to William E. Suida on His Eightieth Birthday. Connoisseur 151 (December 1962): 260.

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.

  • Zeri, Federico. “An Addition to Antonio da Crevalcore.” The Burlington Magazine 108 (August 1966): 425.

1968

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

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 217, 646, as by an anonymous 15th-century Ferrarese painter.

1975

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

1978

  • Sleptzoff, L. M. Men or Supermen? The Italian Portrait in the Fifteenth Century. Jerusalem, 1978: 62.

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.

1984

  • Manca, Joseph. "Ercole de' Roberti and Baldassare d'Este: Two Portraits in Miniature." Antichità viva 23, no. 2 (1984): 17, fig. 10.

  • From Borso to Cesare d’Este. Exh. cat. Matthiesen Fine Arts, Ltd., London 1984: 65. Expanded Italian ed. Da Borso a Cesare d’Este. Ferrara, 1985: 80.

1985

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

  • Sgarbi, Vittorio. Antonio del Crevalcore e la pittura ferrarese del Quattrocento a Bologna. Milan, 1985: 108, no. 19, repro.

  • Sgarbi, Vittorio. “A Painter Restored: Antonio da Crevalcore.” FMR 12 (June 1985): 121.

1992

  • Hornig. Christian. “Baldassare Estense.” In Günter Meissner, ed. _Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker). 87+ vols. Munich and Leipzig, 1992+ 6(1992): 404.

1993

  • Manca, Joseph. "Chi era Baldassarre d'Este?: una riconsiderazione e una nuova attribuzione." Bollettino d'arte 78, no. 79 (1993): 78-80, repro.

1995

  • Molteni, Monica. Ercole de' Roberti. Milan, 1995: 209, 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.

Inscriptions

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

Wikidata ID

Q20174085

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