Provenance

Henry Labouchere, 1st baron Taunton

1798 - 1869

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Four light-skinned men gather around a table in front of a forest-green background in this horizontal painting. In the right half of the picture, two men behind the table are shown from about the waist up. The third man, Cardinal Sauli, sits at the narrow end of the table to our left, and his legs are cropped by the bottom edge of the painting below the knee. The fourth man leans toward the cardinal, and is shown from about the knees up along the left edge of the painting. Cardinal Sauli dominates the composition. His body is angled to our right, and he turns his head to look at us with dark eyes under arched brows. He has a narrow face, a wide nose, and his lips are closed over a round chin. He wears a red cap over brown hair and a red, waist-length cape that buttons down over his chest. His voluminous, long-sleeved, bright white robe has red at the cuffs. Upon closer inspection, what appears to be a black speck on his knee turns out to be a fly painted to look as if it had landed on the surface of the panel. The cardinal’s elbows rest on the arms of a wine-red velvet chair. His right hand, to our left, holds what may be green leather gloves, and he wears a gold ring with a dark oval stone on that ring finger. He rests his other hand palm down on the table, and wears a gold ring with a red stone on the index finger of that hand. Just beyond that hand, a pewter-silver bell edged with wide bands of chased gold sits on the table, which is covered with a cloth patterned with crimson red, harvest yellow, black, and white. At our far left, the man leans toward Cardinal Sauli’s right shoulder, facing our right almost in profile. He has dark, chin-length hair, black eyebrows, a long, straight nose, and a dark, trimmed mustache and beard. His mouth is slightly open. He wears a bright white embroidered, collarless shirt under a black tunic. The fingers of his left hand rest on his chest and he barely touches the back of the velvet chair with his other hand. Behind the table, to our right, the final two men face each other in profile. The man to the left in this pair, closer to Cardinal Sauli, has close-cropped dark hair, a prominent nose, and black eyebrows. His hooded, dark eyes look off to our right, and a mustache frames his closed lips. He rests his right hand on an open book, illustrated with maps, on the table in front of him. The man on the far right holds up his right hand at chest height, and points his right index finger straight up. He has a pointed nose and dark eyes, and his lips are parted under a faint mustache. His brown hair falls to the collar of his ruby-red robe, which falls in vertical pleats from the high neckline. The deep green background seems close to the group, creating a shallow space. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had written on a piece of paper stuck to the front of the table, but the writing is nearly illegible.
Sebastiano del Piombo, Cardinal Bandinello Sauli, His Secretary, and Two Geographers, 1516, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.37

Cardinal Bandinello Sauli, His Secretary, and Two Geographers

Sebastiano del Piombo · 1516 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1961.9.37

This free-standing, painted, terracotta portrait sculpture shows the head, shoulders, and chest of a man with dark hair and a prominent nose. His face and body are angled slightly to our right in this photograph, and he looks down his crooked nose. He has peach-colored skin, which is lightly shadowed around his chin. His thin lips are set in a line, and his brow is furrowed low above his eyes. Chin-length brown hair hangs straight down the sides of his face. His garment has scarlet-red sleeves under a navy-blue tunic, and he wears a red headdress that hangs down to his shoulder over his left ear, on our right. A red scarf drapes across his chest, and the end hangs on his chest on our left. Paint losses on the surface of the sculpture allow the brown terracotta to show through in some areas.
Florentine 16th Century, Lorenzo de' Medici, possibly 1513/1520, painted terracotta, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1943.4.92

Lorenzo de' Medici

Florentine 16th Century · possibly 1513/1520 · painted terracotta ·  Accession ID  1943.4.92