Italian, Emilian, 'Portrait of a Painter', about 1650
About the work
Overview
A young man is shown in half length, his body turned slightly but with his gaze fixed firmly on us. His features are quite particular – a wide mouth, long and prominent nose, dark wavy hair and brown eyes – but his identity remains a mystery. He is clearly a painter: he holds a brush in one hand, with which he is mixing colours on the painter’s palette he grasps with the other.
This may be a portrait of an artist or possibly a self portrait – it is difficult to tell which because in both instances artists were often shown in the act of painting. When this work entered the National Gallery’s collection in 1906, it was thought to be a self portrait by the Bolognese painter Benedetto Gennari (1633–1715). Although both the artist and sitter have yet to be convincingly identified, the picture is probably Emilian (painted by an artist from Emilia-Romagna) and datable to the mid-seventeenth century.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Portrait of a Painter
- Artist
- Italian, Emilian
- Date made
- about 1650
- Medium and support
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 64.1 × 51.4 cm
- Acquisition credit
- Bequeathed by the Misses Cohen as part of the John Samuel collection, 1906
- Inventory number
- NG2106
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
Provenance
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Michael Levey, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italian Schools’, London 1986; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Bibliography
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1895Catalogue of Pictures by Italian Masters of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Collected by John Samuel, London 1895
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1907M.H. Spielmann, 'The Samuel Bequest to the National Gallery', The Connoisseur, XVIII, 1907, pp. 35-40
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1907London, National Gallery Archive, NG17/6: Annual Report of the Trustees of the National Gallery for the Year 1906, 1907
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1911National Gallery, An Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery, London 1911
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1913National Gallery, Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the British and Foreign Pictures, 81st edn, London 1913
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1971M. Levey, The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1971
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1986Levey, Michael, National Gallery Catalogues: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1986
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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.