Follower of Jan van Eyck, 'Marco Barbarigo', about 1449-50

Marco Barbarigo

Follower of Jan van Eyck

On loan: Long Loan to the Victoria & Albert Museum (2024 - 2027), Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK

About the work

Overview

This serious-looking young man is Marco Barbarigo, known as ‘Marco the Rich’, Venetian consul in London in 1449 and Doge of Venice – the elected head of state – in 1485. This portrait was apparently painted while he was in London: he holds a letter addressed to ‘the eminent and distinguished lord Marco Barbarigo’. The address, ‘Londonis’, is partly hidden by his fingers.

The painting’s quality suggests that it was done by a follower rather than Jan van Eyck, but one who was clearly very familiar with the artist’s principles: the bold colours, strong lighting and the slightly distorted proportions are typical of van Eyck. Perhaps Barbarigo, about to return to Italy, commissioned a portrait from an artist working in the latest Netherlandish style to take home as a souvenir; the painting was in Venice in the eighteenth century.

In-depth

This serious-looking young man is Marco Barbarigo, known as ‘Marco the Rich’, Venetian consul in London in 1449 and Doge of Venice in 1485. Born in 1413 into a family of Venetian merchants, he ran the family business in London in the mid-1440s.

Barbarigo wears a dark purple chaperon, a fashionable fifteenth-century headdress for men that was made up of a padded ring; his dark brown hair is just visible at his left temple. The short patte or cape rests on his left shoulder and the long, scarf-like cornette hangs down his right side. His bright red houpelande – a long-sleeved robe worn by both men and women in the later Middle Ages – is trimmed with brown fur at the neck. Under it we can see the collar of his doublet and the white of his shirt. His clothes are rather old-fashioned for a date in the late 1440s, but Barbarigo was known to have had conservative tastes, at least in hats.

This portrait was apparently painted while he was in London: he holds a letter, written in Latin, addressed to ‘the eminent and distinguished lord Marco Barbarigo, son of the late eminent lord Francesco, procurator of Saint Mark’s’. The address at the bottom, ‘Londonis’, is partly hidden by his fingers; the letters ‘f’ and ‘n’ perhaps stand for fratri nostri (‘our brother’). Marco’s father Francesco died in August 1448, and Marco himself was made Venetian consul in London in February 1449. This appointment usually lasted a year, after which he may have returned to Venice to settle his father’s affairs and marry (his first son was born around 1450).

The quality of the painting suggests that it was done by a follower of Jan van Eyck who was working in London in 1449/50. We don't know much about painters working in London at the time, but this one was very familiar with the artist’s principles; he had probably been trained in Flanders. The bold colour scheme and strong lighting against a dark background are typical of van Eyck, as are the distorted proportions: the head is much too large in proportion to the body, and the face too large for the head. The painter has enlarged the features, especially the nose, which is shown in exaggerated profile. Perhaps Barbarigo, on the point of leaving London, commissioned a portrait from an artist working in the latest Netherlandish style to take home as a souvenir, possibly for his brothers. The painting was in Venice in the eighteenth century.

The narrow strip of bare wood around the edges was once covered by the frame, now lost. The portrait was painted in its frame, as was sometimes the practice in the fifteenth-century Netherlands (as in Campin’s A Man and A Woman). The frame was perhaps painted before the portrait: there is a pale orange layer underneath the green background around the edges. The back of the panel was probably marbled in red, black and green, but is very damaged. Paintings were not always hung on walls in the late Middle Ages, as is usual now, and so the backs were sometimes decorated as they could also be seen.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Marco Barbarigo
Artist: Follower of Jan van Eyck
Artist dates: active 1422; died 1441
Date made: about 1449-50
Medium and support: oil on wood
Dimensions: 24.2 × 16 cm
Inscription summary: Inscribed
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1862
Inventory number: NG696
Location: On loan: Long Loan to the Victoria & Albert Museum (2024 - 2027), Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Collection: Main Collection

Provenance

The dealer Giovan Maria Sasso (c. 1743–1803) wrote from Venice on 30 December 1791 to Sir Abraham Hume (1749–1838) to tell him that he had found a small portrait on panel of Marco Barbarigo, painted long before he became Doge of Venice. It showed him holding a paper inscribed ‘Londini’ and identifying him as the son of ‘Andrea’, Procurator of St Mark’s. Sasso thought that it had been painted in about 1440, that it was in the style of Lucas van Leyden and that the letter bore the painter’s signature. He asked about painters in London in those ‘remote times’ but Hume was unable to give him any relevant information. The portrait was obviously NG 696 and Sasso must have sold it soon afterwards to Girolamo Manfrin, who had made a vast fortune from tobacco and who installed his large collection in the Palazzo Venier, renamed the Palazzo Manfrin. He died in 1802; the collection passed to his son Pietro Manfrin, who died in 1835, and then to Pietro’s sister Giulia Giovanna, who had married in 1800 Giovanni Battista Plattis and who died in 1848 or 1849. Her property was divided between her children Antonio Maria Plattis (1802–76) and Bartolina Plattis or Sardagna. NG 696 was part of Bartolina’s inheritance. On the reverse is written H 11; 11 has been deleted and 2 added. One of two Manfrin labels formerly on the reverse and now in the NG dossier is inscribed H./N°. 22. The galleries in the Palazzo Manfrin were numbered by letters of the alphabet. Room H contained early pictures but from time to time the galleries seem to have been rehung and the paintings were renumbered. In a catalogue of 1851, no. H 22 was a portrait attributed to Angelo Pizzamano. In 1855 Eastlake saw NG 696 in the Manfrin gallery: ‘44 Small portrait – fine ... 44 exquisite 9½ in. h. 6¼ w. addressed to a Barbarigo in London – wood.’ Apparently no. 353 in the printed Manfrin catalogue of 1856, it was evidently described by Eastlake as ‘Roger of Bruges – Portrait of an Ambassador’ in his list dated 9 June 1856 of ‘Manfrin pictures remaining & desirable’. It was purchased, with two Italian paintings, from the Manfrin collection in 1862.

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.

Exhibition history

2013

Long Loan to the Victoria & Albert Museum (2013 - 2015)

Victoria and Albert Museum

1 March 2013 - 30 November 2015
2015

Long Loan to the Victoria & Albert Museum (2015 - 2018)

Victoria and Albert Museum

1 May 2015 - 1 November 2018
2018

Long Loan to the Victoria & Albert Museum (2018 - 2021)

Victoria and Albert Museum

2 November 2018 - 1 November 2021
2021

Long Loan to the Victoria & Albert Museum (2021 - 2024)

Victoria and Albert Museum

2 November 2021 - 1 November 2024
2024

Long Loan to the Victoria & Albert Museum (2024 - 2027)

Victoria and Albert Museum

2 November 2024 - 1 November 2027

Bibliography

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
1987

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Early Netherlandish School, 3rd edn, London 1987
1998

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

Images

Related works

Portrait of a Man ('Léal Souvenir')

Jan van Eyck

This small portrait is puzzling in many ways. We don‘t know who this man was or why he is holding a scroll, which is – rather strangely – inscribed on the outside. The painting’s tall, narrow shape is unusual and there are mysterious inscriptions carved into the very large, cracked stone parapet...

Not on display

Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?)

Jan van Eyck

This impassive face is almost certainly that of Jan van Eyck himself, and the painting a powerful statement of his artistic skill. His motto, Als Ich Can, is painted in Greek letters on the upper frame; the words are an abbreviation of a Flemish saying and a pun on Jan’s name: ‘as I[ich/Eyk] can...

Not on display

The Arnolfini Portrait

Jan van Eyck

This must be one of the most famous and intriguing paintings in the world. A richly dressed man and woman stand in a private room. They are probably Giovanni di Nicolao di Arnolfini, an Italian merchant working in Bruges, and his wife.Although the room is totally plausible – as if Jan van Eyck ha...

Not on display

A Young Man holding a Ring

Follower of Jan van Eyck

We don‘t know the identity of the young man in this small portrait, but his clothes are those of a wealthy individual. The fur of his cuffs and collar is spotted, which is unusual in mid-fifteenth-century Netherlandish painting; it might be lynx. The laced collar of his doublet is perhaps a Germa...

Not on display

Follower of Jan van Eyck, 'Marco Barbarigo', about 1449-50

About the work

Overview

In-depth

Key facts

Details

Provenance

Additional information

Source

Exhibition history

Bibliography

About this record

Images

Related works