Portrait of a Gentleman

c. 1520

Bartolomeo Veneto

Artist, Lombard-Venetian, active 1502 - 1531

Shown from the chest up, a pale-skinned, clean-shaven man wears furs and fine fabrics in this vertical portrait painting. He is angled to our left and looks down in that direction with brown eyes under slender brows. His shoulder-length, dark brown hair is topped by a soft black cap adorned with a gold medallion-like badge over the temple closer to us. The man has a long, pointed nose, his pale pink lips are closed, and his jawline is darkened by a five-o-clock shadow. He wears a white shirt with a wide, square neckline under a vest or low-cut doublet striped with black and gold. A voluminous black overcoat is lined with tawny-brown fur and edged with gold, L-shaped bands over the shoulders. He holds the sides of the coat together low on his chest with his right hand, to our left. The sleeve looks like black velvet over a translucent white cuff, and the man wears a gold ring with a gray gem on that index finger. A brown band across the bottom of the picture could be a narrow ledge in front of the man or a board or slab oriented vertically, like a frame. A small piece of white, creased paper appears to be affixed to the front of the board with red wax, a glimpse of which is shown along the top edge. A scarlet-red curtain hangs behind the man across the left two-thirds of the composition. A rectangle on the dark wall to our right could be a window opening or a painting. There we find a hilly landscape with trees, buildings, and water. Close to us in that distant view, a man wearing robes and on horseback rides away from a man carrying a lance and running after the horse.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 10

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel transferred to canvas

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 76.8 × 58.4 cm (30 1/4 × 23 in.)
    framed: 107 × 89.22 × 8.57 cm (42 1/8 × 35 1/8 × 3 3/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1939.1.257

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Casa Perego, Milan, by 1871, as Portrait of Maximilian Sforza by Andrea Solario. Comm. Cristoforo Benigno Crespi, Milan, by 1900. Probably owned jointly by (Wildenstein & Co., London, New York and Paris) and (René Gimpel, Paris), from c. 1911; sold 1919 to Henry Goldman [1857-1937], New York, until at least 1930. (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); sold 1937 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[1] gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] See also the Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1669.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1920

  • Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1920, unnumbered catalogue.

1930

  • Exhibition of Italian Art 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1930, no. 387 (no. 342 of commemorative catalogue published 1930; not in souvenir catalogue).

1939

  • Masterpieces of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300-1800, New York World's Fair, 1939, no. 7, repro.

2002

  • "The Portraits of Bartolomeo Veneto", Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, 2002, no. 4.

2006

  • Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 2006-2007, no. 48, repro.

2016

  • Glory of Venice: Masterworks of the Renaissance, Denver Art Museum; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 2016-2017, no. 34.

Bibliography

1941

  • Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: nos. 144-145, repros., as Portrait of Massimiliano Sforza [Presumed].

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 16, no. 368.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 247, repro. 64.

1944

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 48, repro.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 113, repro.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 153, repro.

1962

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Treasures from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1962: 26, color repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 10.

1968

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

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 164-165, fig. 396.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 17, 645.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 18, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:27-29; 2:pl. 17.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 219, no. 269, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 36, repro.

1996

  • Hackenbroch, Yvonne. Enseignes. Florence, 1996:104, repro. 118

1997

  • Pagnotta, Laura. Bartolomeo Veneto. L'opera completa. Milan, 1997: 210-212, cat. 26, pl. XIV.

Wikidata ID

Q20175650

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