Portrait of a Youth

c. 1495/1498

Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio

Artist, Milanese, 1467 - 1516

The head, shoulders, and chest of a light-skinned boy or young man wearing a black cap and red garment nearly fill this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled slightly to our right, and he looks at us from the corners of his hazel eyes. He has smooth skin, rounded cheeks, faint, thin eyebrows, and a small nose. His full, dark pink lips are closed. He wears a brimless, soft black cap, slightly askew, over long chestnut-brown hair that covers his ears and flows down past his shoulders. Two small, gold, vertical lines accent the front center of his cap near the lower edge. He wears a collarless, crimson-red jacket, with dark brown trim along the edges and at the shoulder. Pleated folds of his ivory-white shirt material puff out from openings at the shoulders and a V at the top of the chest. There is a also brown band around the neck of the white shirt with a pattern of black, knot-like designs. The white shirt also has two rows of delicate black lines where it is pulled through at the shoulders. The boy is lit from our right and above, casting a shadow on his neck and cheek to our left. The background behind him is teal blue.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 18

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on walnut panel

  • Credit Line

    Ralph and Mary Booth Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 46.8 x 34.8 cm (18 7/16 x 13 11/16 in.)
    framed: 66.7 x 54.3 x 6.7 cm (26 1/4 x 21 3/8 x 2 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1946.19.2

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Baron Gustave Salomon de Rothschild [1829-1911], Paris; possibly by inheritance to his son-in-law, Edward Albert Sassoon, 2nd bt. [1856-1912], London;[1] probably by inheritance to his son, Sir Philip Albert Gustave David Sassoon, 3rd bt. [d. 1939], London, until at least 1921.[2] (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); sold to Ralph Harman [1873-1931] and Mary Batterman [d. 1951] Booth, Grosse Pointe, Michigan, by 1926;[3] gift 1946 to NGA.
[1] According to the estate papers for Gustave de Rothschild, Boltraffio's "Portrait d'un jeune homme" hung in the gallery in his Paris house at 23 Avenue de Marigny. It does not seem to have been left to Edward Sassoon directly, but was part of a lot of furniture and objects "à tirer au sort" [to be drawn by lot] (see letter of 30 July 1998 from Tamsin Black, assistant archivist, The Rothschild Archive, in NGA curatorial files).
[2] The painting was published in 1921 as being owned by Sir Philip Sassoon.
[3] The painting was lent by the Booths to a 1926 exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1926

  • Third Loan Exhibition of Old Masters, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1926, no. 9.

1927

  • Fifth Loan Exhibition of Old and Modern Masters, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1927, no. 7.

1930

  • Exhibition of Italian Art 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1930, no. 314, as Portrait of a Boy (no. 310 and pl. CXVII in commemorative catalogue published 1931; not in souvenir catalogue).

1933

  • Sixteenth Loan Exhibition of Old Masters. Italian Paintings of the XIV to XVI Century, Detroit Institute of Arts, March 1933, no. 86

  • A Century of Progess Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, June-November 1933, no. 106.

1939

  • Masterpieces of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300-1800, New York World's Fair, 1939, no. 14, pl. 25.

Bibliography

1948

  • Recent Additions to the Ralph and Mary Booth Collection. Washington, 1948: unpaginated, repro.

  • "Gifts from the Booth Collection." The Connoisseur 122 (1948): 40.

1949

  • "Ralph and Mary Booth Bequest in der National Gallery of Art, Washington." Phoebus 2, no. 2 (1949): 72, repro.

1950

  • "Old Masters in America: Important Gifts to the National Gallery, Washington" The Illustrated London News (September 16, 1950): 449, repro.

1951

  • Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: repro. 67.

1952

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 62, color repro.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 69.

1960

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Later Italian Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1960 (Booklet Number Six in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 12, color repro.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 301, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 16.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:140, color repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 9, repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:57.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 32, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:74-75; 2:pl. 48.

  • Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 37, pl. 20.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 227, no. 284, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 51, 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: 143-145, color repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20174700

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