Petrus Christus, 'Portrait of a Young Man', 1450-60

Portrait of a Young Man

Petrus Christus

Not on display

About the work

Overview

We don‘t know the identity of the young man in this small painting, but he is clearly a person of wealth and taste. He wears a bright red robe trimmed with fur, and at his waist is a black bag with a ’notebook' of wax tablets inside. He holds a small but luxurious manuscript, probably a Book of Hours (a devotional book) or prayer book.

He is perhaps an Italian merchant – Christus often worked for Italian patrons and the painting was in an Italian collection in the eighteenth or early nineteenth century. The tablets in his bag show that he often had to make notes, as a merchant would.

On the wall behind him is a piece of parchment with a prayer in Latin, and a picture of a miraculous image of Christ. Perhaps the young man is reciting the prayer in his book and was originally looking across at another image, now lost.

In-depth

A young man stands in the corner of a vaulted room. He wears a bright red houpelande, a long-sleeved over-garment worn in the later Middle Ages. It is belted at the waist and trimmed with brown fur at neck and cuffs. It seems to be made of wool, perhaps the famous – and expensive – Flemish ’scarlet‘ cloth. A black chaperon, a fifteenth-century male headdress, hangs down his back; its cornette, a scarf-like attachment, comes down over his shoulder. His hair has been shaved at both temples and the back of his neck, as was fashionable for a smart young man in the 1450s.

He wears a gold signet ring, and holds a small but luxurious book with gilded fore-edges and a tasselled chemise binding, probably a Book of Hours or prayer book. At his waist is a small bag with metal fittings, attached to his belt. This kind of girdle purse was a fashionable, expensive item. If you look inside it, you can see what seems to be a small book closed by a silver clasp. This is a ’notebook' of wax tablets with a metal stylus tucked into the clasp.

This is more than a simple portrait, however: the room itself is intriguing. Through the window we can see a landscape with trees, roofs and a castle in the distance. A small white mark is, on closer inspection, the back of a horse. The other window is decorated with statues in niches, one of which is missing. The surviving figures seem to be a bearded and barefoot John the Baptist on the right, a sibyl or prophetess in a long gown and a turban at the bottom, and a prophet. The latter two hold scrolls, symbols of pre-Christian authors in Renaissance art. Through the window we can see a balcony made of inlaid stone, topped with a lion resting his foot on a shield.

It is not clear precisely what these figures mean, or what kind of a space the man is standing in. Is it a house, a castle or a church? And what is the young man doing – is he meant to be a donor? Donors usually knelt in Netherlandish art, as in Rogier van der Weyden’s Pietà, but this man seems to be standing. He does not pray, but holds a devotional book, as in Portrait of a Young Man.

The text nailed to the wall might shed some light on the mystery. A piece of parchment has been pinned to an arched board; we can see the light reflecting off the pins, the shadows around them and a loose corner curling up. On it is a prayer in Latin and a picture of a miraculous image of Christ known as the Holy Face. Prayers to the Holy Face were popular in the mid-fifteenth century: people believed that reciting these allowed them to reduce the time they spent in purgatory after death. The young man himself is perhaps an Italian merchant. Christus often worked for Italian patrons and the painting was in an Italian collection in the eighteenth or early nineteenth century. The tablets in the man’s bag show that he often had to make notes, as a merchant would.

The panel was possibly the left wing of a folding diptych or triptych. There are now no sign of hinges but these would have been attached to the original frame, which has been lost. It would have covered the strip around the edge which is now partly gilded (the gold is a later addition). Perhaps the man is reciting the prayer in his book and was originally looking across at another image, now lost.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Portrait of a Young Man
Artist: Petrus Christus
Artist dates: active 1444; died 1475/6
Date made: 1450-60
Medium and support: oil on wood
Dimensions: 35.4 × 26 cm
Inscription summary: Inscribed
Acquisition credit: Salting Bequest, 1910
Inventory number: NG2593
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection
Previous owners: Thomas George Baring, 1st Earl and 2nd Baron of Northbrook

George Salting
Frame: 21st-century Replica Frame

Provenance

On the reverse is an inscription, in an eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century hand: ‘Luca d’Olanda’. The portrait therefore comes from an Italian collection. The financier Thomas Baring (1799–1873) bought it in 1863 from the London dealer Henry Farrer. Baring bequeathed all his pictures to his nephew Thomas George Baring (1826–1904), Lord Northbrook, afterwards (1876) Earl of Northbrook. On 1 August 1894 the Earl offered to sell the picture to the National Gallery; it was in the collection of George Salting (1836–1909) by May 1895, when he offered to lend it to the Gallery. It formed part of the Salting Bequest of 1910.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Lorne Campbell, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Schools’, London 1998; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Bibliography

1889

W.H.J. Weale and J.P. Richter, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures Belonging to the Earl of Northbrook, London 1889
1908

E.R.D. Maclagan, 'Hubert and Jan van Eyck', The Burlington Magazine, XII/58, 1908, pp. 247-9
1925

C. Holmes, 'Petrus Christus in Italy', The Burlington Magazine, XLVI/267, 1925, pp. 288-9
1928

C. Hughes, 'A Slip in James Weale's the van Eycks?', The Burlington Magazine, LIII/304, 1928, pp. 48-9
1937

M. Davies, 'National Gallery Notes, II: Netherlandish Primitives: Petrus Christus', The Burlington Magazine, LXX/408, 1937, pp. 138-43
1945

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: Early Netherlandish School, London 1945
1953

M. Davies, The National Gallery, London, Les Primitifs flamands. I, Corpus de la peinture des anciens Pay-Bas méridionaux au quinzième siècle 3, 2 vols, Antwerp 1953
1955

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: Early Netherlandish School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1955
1967

M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, eds N. Veronée-Verhaegen and H. Pauwels, trans. H. Norden, 14 vols, Leiden 1967
1970

M. Comblen-Sonkes, 'Le dessin sous-jacent chez les Primitifs flamands', Bulletin de l'Institut Royal du Patrimoine Artistique, XII, 1970, pp. 195-225
1980

J. Wright, 'Antonello da Messina: Origins of His Style and Technique', Art History, III/1, 1980, pp. 41-60
1987

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Early Netherlandish School, 3rd edn, London 1987
1991

J. Dunkerton et al., Giotto to Dürer: Early Renaissance Painting in the National Gallery, New Haven 1991
1993

J.L. Koerner, The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art, Chicago 1993
1994

H. Belting and C. Kruse, Die Erfindung des Gemäldes: Das erste Jahrhundert der niederländischen Malerei, Munich 1994
1995

D. Martens, 'Le Maître des Portraits Baroncelli: Un élève de Petrus Christus?', Gentse Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis en Oudheidkunde, XXX, 1995, pp. 71-105
1997

S. Hindman, Illuminations, New York 1997
1998

Campbell, Lorne, National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings, London 1998
1998

J.F. Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany, New York 1998
1998

J.C. Wilson, Painting in Bruges at the Close of the Middle Ages: Studies in Society and Visual Culture, Univerisity Park PA 1998
1998

M.L. Koster, 'Reconsidering St. Catherine of Bologna with Three Donors by the Baroncelli Master of Bruges', Simiolus, XXVI/1-2, 1998, pp. 4-17
2000

G. Finaldi, The Image of Christ, London 2000
2000

T. Todorov, Éloge de l'individu: Essai sur la peinture flammande de la Renaissance, Paris 2000
2000

B. Baert, 'The Gendered Visage: Facets of the Vera Icon', Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerpen, 2000, pp. 10-43
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2005

B.L. Rothstein, Sight and Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting, Cambridge 2005
2007

B.L. Rothstein, 'The Rule of Metaphor and the Play of the Viewer in the Hours of Mary of Burgundy', in R. Falkenburg and W.S. Melion (eds), Image and Imagination of the Religious Self in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Turnhout 2007, pp. 237-75

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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Edward Grimston