Palma Vecchio, 'Portrait of a Poet', about 1516

Portrait of a Poet

Palma Vecchio

Not on display

About the work

Overview

This thoughtful man, probably in his late twenties, is richly dressed in a costume dating from about 1516. He holds a rosary and his hand rests on a book tied with blue ribbons. Round his neck is a type of gold chain worn by the minor nobility.

The book and the laurels behind him suggest that he may have been a poet. The laurel tree was the attribute of Apollo, Roman god of poetry and music, and poets were traditionally crowned with laurel leaves.

It was previously believed that the portrait represents the poet Lodovico Ariosto (1474–1533), who wrote the epic poem Orlando Furioso, published for the first time in 1516. However, Ariosto would have been 41 or 42 in 1516, which seems too old for the man in this painting, and he does not resemble descriptions of Ariosto’s appearance.

In-depth

This thoughtful man, probably in his late twenties, is richly dressed in a padded maroon jacket with dark blue stripes on the puffed sleeves. Over this he wears a brown fur cape. He holds a rosary and his left hand rests on a book tied with blue ribbons. He wears one leather glove and holds the other in the right hand. Round his neck is a type of fine gold chain worn by the minor nobility.

The book and the laurels behind the man suggest that he may have been a poet. The laurel tree was the attribute of Apollo, Roman god of poetry and music. Poets were traditionally crowned with laurel leaves, hence the title ‘poet laureate’. The rosary suggests that the man’s artistic interests are balanced by his spiritual concerns. The dark background and olive leaves recall Giorgione’s Laura of 1506, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

On the basis of the clothing, the painting probably dates from about 1516. This was when the epic poem Orlando Furioso was first published and achieved instant fame, and it has been proposed that the portrait is of the author, Lodovico Ariosto (1474–1533). However, Ariosto would have been 41 or 42 in 1516, which seems too old for the man in this painting. There is no evidence that Ariosto, who was from Ferrara, ever sat for Palma Vecchio, who worked in Venice. Equally, although Ariosto mentioned the contemporary Venetian painters Titian, Sebastiano del Piombo and Giovanni Bellini in the Orlando Furioso, he did not mention Palma Vecchio, which suggests that he was not familiar with him.

The expanded 1532 edition of Orlando Furioso contains a woodcut portrait of Ariosto based on a drawing by Titian, which does not look like the sitter in the National Gallery’s painting. Nor does the description of Ariosto in the 1562 edition – as a man with black curly hair, olive skin, thin lips, a thin beard which didn't cover the chin as far as the ears and a big curved, aquiline nose – seem to fit this man.

The sitter in the portrait looks similar in appearance and mood to one in a bust-length portrait thought to be by Titian in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. However in that painting the sitter is turned to the side and probably once had his arm resting on a parapet in a pose similar to that in Titian’s Portrait of Gerolamo (?) Barbarigo. The Metropolitan Museum portrait has been significantly cut down. It does not include either the laurels or the book that appear in Palma Vecchio’s picture. Although the sitters look similar, the relationship between these two paintings, if any, is unclear.

The National Gallery painting is one of Palma Vecchio’s earliest successful portraits and may have inspired Titian’s Man with a Glove (Louvre, Paris). The portrait is damaged in several places, which have been repainted. The surface is also rubbed, meaning that the some of the subtleties of the paint texture and fine details have been lost, for example in the hair and the golden chain.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Portrait of a Poet
Artist: Palma Vecchio
Artist dates: about 1480 - 1528
Date made: about 1516
Medium and support: oil, originally on wood, transferred to wood
Dimensions: 83.8 × 63.5 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1860
Inventory number: NG636
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 16th-century Italian Frame

Provenance

In the Tomline collection probably after 1850 (the year of Waagen’s visit: he does not mention the picture). In Paris by 1857 (when it was transferred to canvas). Purchased with the Beaucousin collection, 1860. Earlier provenance obscure. The assumption, made in the 1929 catalogue and elsewhere, that it was successively in the Renieri and Vianoli collections at Venice rests on identifying it with each of two pictures recorded respectively by Ridolfi (1648) and Fontanini (1736) but which are not necessarily even identical with each other. Ridolfi says that Titian fece il di lui (Ariosto) ritratto in maestosa maniera con veste di velluto nero foderato di pelle di lupi ceruieri apparendogli nel senio con gentil sprezzatura le crespe della camiscia. Hor trouasi in Venetia appresso del Signor Nicolò Renieri degno Pittore, ornato di molte riguardeuoli conditioni. It will be seen that the specification of a black velvet robe lined with lynx fur is not an adequate description of the gorgeous colours of the dress in no. 636—regardless of whether or not the basic material of the robe in the picture could justly be called black velvet or the fur lynx. Fontanini says simply già molti anni io vidi l’Ariosto dipinto da Tiziano presso i signori Vianoli in Venezia a San Canciano. It is thus apparent that the Vianoli picture is not necessarily identical with the Renieri—in which collection, incidentally, there seems to be no other mention of it.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Cecil Gould, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools’, London 1987; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2008

Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian

The National Gallery (London)

15 October 2008 - 18 January 2009
2015

Palma il Vecchio

Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea / Accademia Carrara

13 March 2015 - 21 June 2015

Bibliography

1877

F. Reiset, 'Une visite aux musées de Londres en 1876, IV', Gazette des beaux-arts, XV, 1877, pp. 449-61
1905

H.F. Cook, 'The Identification of Two Painters' Portraits I: "The Portrait of Antonio Palma" by Titian', The Burlington Magazine, VI/24, 1905, pp. 451-3
1908

W. Armstrong, 'Notes on Various Works of Art: The "Portrait of a Poet" in the National Gallery', The Burlington Magazine, XIII/61, 1908, p. 38
1910

H.F. Cook, 'Venetian Portraits, and Some Problems', The Burlington Magazine, XVI/84, 1910, pp. 328-34
1918

C.J. Holmes, 'A Monthly Chronicle. Notes in the National Gallery: I. A Venetian Secret', The Burlington Magazine, XXXIII/184, 1918
1932

G.M. Richter, 'A Clue to Giorgione's Late Style', The Burlington Magazine, LX/348, 1932, pp. 123-32
1937

G. Gombosi, Palma Vecchio: Des Meisters Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Stuttgart 1937
1959

Gould, Cecil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Venetian School, London 1959
1960

H.A. Noë, 'Messer Giacomo en zijn "Laura" (een dubbelportret Van Giorgione?)', Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, XI, 1960, pp. 1-35
1975

C. Gould, Delaroche and Gautier: Gautier's Views on the 'Execution of Lady Jane Grey' and on other Compositions by Delaroche, London 1975
1975

P. Zampetti (ed.), I pittori bergamaschi dal XIII al XIX secolo: Le origini, 13 vols, Bergamo 1975
1987

Gould, Cecil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1987
1992

P. Rylands, Palma Vecchio, Cambridge 1992
1996

M. Lucco, La pittura del Veneto: Il Cinquecento, Milan 1996
2000

F. Ames-Lewis, The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist, New Haven 2000
2000

P. Spencer-Longhurst, The Blue Bower: Rossetti in the 1860s (exh. cat. The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, 27 October 2000 - 14 January 2001; Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 11 February - 6 May 2001), Birmingham 2000
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2006

D.A. Brown et al., Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting (exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 18 June - 17 September 2006; Kunsthistorisches Museum, 17 October 2006 - 7 January 2007), New Haven 2006
2008

L. Syson et al., Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 15 October 2008 - 16 January 2009), London 2008

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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