Antonello da Messina (c.1430-1479)
Ritratto d’uomo (Portrait of a Man)
c.1476
Oil and tempera on panel, 31 x 25.2 cm
Galleria Borghese, Roma
As is usual with Antonello’s portraiture, the figure is depicted in a three-quarter-length view of a half-bust against a dark background. The very lively expression and gaze are the most striking aspects of the painting, considered a masterpiece among the artist’s mature works. The man portrayed wears a red robe and black cap, the typical attire of those Venetian patricians who admired and were patrons to Antonello da Messina. For stylistic reasons, the painting must be dated to the artist’s Venetian sojourn of 1475–1476. The panel is unsigned, but it has been assumed that the painter’s name was on a cartouche placed directly on the frame. The work was first listed in the Borghese inventories of 1790 with an attribution to Giovanni Bellini and only retraced to Antonello in 1869. Recent studies rule out the hypotheses, formulated in the past, that identified the portrait as that of the patrician Michele Vianello, found in an important Venetian collection in the 16th century, as well as its possible provenance from the 17th-century collection of Olimpia Aldobrandini. (GB)