Borghese Collection

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Shown from the knees up, a light-skinned man wearing a loose, ink-black garment with a white collar leans back in a wooden chair in this vertical portrait painting. His body faces our left almost in profile, but he turns his head to look at us from the corners of his light hazel-brown eyes, the eyebrow closer to us slightly cocked. Crow’s feet line the corners of his hooded eyes. He is lit from our right so the side of his face to our left is in shadow. His slightly hollow cheeks are lined between his nose and mouth with wrinkles. His silvery-gray beard is trimmed close to his angled jawline and pointed chin. His gray hair is closely cropped hair under a velvety-black, three-pointed cap. The white collar is trimmed with stripes and a row of delicate dots along the edge. The man leans heavily against his left arm, closer to us, which is stretched along the arm of the chair to nearly span the width of the painting. That hand curls around the terminal of the chair, which is carved with a stylized flower in a disk. He wears a gold ring with a dark blue stone on the pinky of that hand. He marks the spot in a closed book with his other hand, and rests the book in the crook of the elbow draped along the arm of the chair. The book he holds has a sand-brown cover, and is about the size of a thick paperback novel. The crimson-red lining along the back of the chair, to our right, and the cushion on which the man sits is trimmed with rows of fringe of the same color. The background behind the man is deep, sable brown in the corners and lightens to tan around the man’s head.
Giovanni Battista Moroni, "Titian's Schoolmaster", c. 1575, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.45

"Titian's Schoolmaster"

Giovanni Battista Moroni · c. 1575 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.45

Dosso Dossi, The Trojans Building the Temple to Venus and Making Offerings at Anchises's Grave in Sicily, c. 1520, oil on canvas, Purchased as the Gift of Anonymous, 2021.6.1

The Trojans Building the Temple to Venus and Making Offerings at Anchises's Grave in Sicily

Dosso Dossi · c. 1520 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2021.6.1

On the right side of this horizontal painting, two light-skinned men stand close to us on a spit of land separated from the rest of the scene by stretch of water that leads back to a town on the far shore. People gather on and around two boats floating in the water between the spit of land to our right and a copse of trees to our left. Beginning with the pair of men to our right: one man looking toward us has a broad forehead and grizzled blond beard. He wears a brick-red and canary-yellow turban, a yellow and crimson-red striped doublet with puffy sleeves, and a red codpiece. His scarlet-red hose have decorative slashes down the thigh to show yellow fabric underneath. He holds one long sword in his left hand, to our right, so the blade rests on that shoulder, and another sword hangs in a scabbard on his waist. Facing him, to our right, is the second man. He has a dark beard and a broad red hat trimmed with white feathers. He wears a doublet with wide red and white horizontal stripes and a white codpiece. His close-fitting white hose have thin, dark lines running from his waist to his feet, like pinstripes. He rests the back of his left hand, closer to us, on his hip. The tip of a long sword rests between his feet, and his far hand holds the hilt, which is as tall as his shoulder. Both men wear slipper-like shoes. Beyond this pair, near the center of the composition, a dozen men work on the wooden ships in the waterway. The trees to our left have feathery canopies of dense green foliage highlighted with butter yellow. A red pennant flutters in the wind near the left edge of the painting. About two dozen men, women, and children sit and stand closely under the trees. They wear capes, robes, turbans, and headdresses in aquamarine blue, marigold orange, burgundy red, cream white, and laurel green. Several of them are turned toward a woman dressed in blue holding an infant. Along the far shoreline, to our right, a city with tan-colored, stone towers glows under a soft topaz-blue sky, mirrored in the luminous blue water, as a ship with a billowing white sail passes by. On the distant horizon, high mountain peaks are faintly visible through a steel-blue haze.
Dosso Dossi, The Trojans Repairing Their Ships in Sicily, c. 1520, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.250

The Trojans Repairing Their Ships in Sicily

Dosso Dossi · c. 1520 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1939.1.250

Michelangelo, Head of a Man, c. 1530, red chalk with pen and black ink on laid paper, Anonymous Gift, 2006.47.1

Head of a Man

Michelangelo · c. 1530 · red chalk with pen and black ink on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2006.47.1

A woman, Mary, sits surrounded by winged angels on a bank of clouds above a second woman who prays in front of a vast landscape in this vertical, arched painting. The women and angels all have pale skin and rosy cheeks. Mary and the angels take up the top two-thirds of the composition. Mary’s body is angled to our left, but she turns her face to us as she looks up. She wears a flax-yellow veil under an azure-blue mantle, which drapes over her shoulders and her ruby-red dress. Her hands are together in prayer, and her body, including one bare foot, is supported by the angels. Two older angels, like young adults, are at Mary’s feet and they look down. Both have long, wavy blond hair, and they wear robes in grass green or rust red. Two nude, child-like angels are to either side of Mary’s hips. Sixteen baby heads with blond hair and wings alongside their ears are nestled in the smoky-violet clouds around Mary. This group is lit brightly from our left but also backlit by the ring of angel heads. The older woman in the lower left corner of the composition wears a translucent veil and white head covering as she looks up, her hands also in prayer and holding a rosary. Her cheeks and jowls sag, and she wears a black dress. The grassy, shadowed landscape extends into the deep distance to a cluster of buildings in the lower right corner of the painting. Beyond the woman and smaller in scale, a man wearing a yellow cloak over a red robe reaches toward or releases a green snaking shape, perhaps a strip of fabric.
Girolamo da Carpi, The Apparition of the Virgin, 1530/1540, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.382

The Apparition of the Virgin

Girolamo da Carpi · 1530/1540 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.382