This portrait was purchased by the great American collectors Harry and Louisine Havemeyer from the noble Martinengo family of Brescia, who believed it to represent a young man related to them from the Colleoni family of neighboring Bergamo. The painting, probably dating to the 1570s, hung in the Martinengo villa and its conception recalls Veronese's illusionistic frescoes in other Veneto villas, in one of which members of the family are shown as though entering the space of the viewer through an open door.

The sky, painted in a fugitive smalt blue, has lost most of its color.

Forthcoming

Martinengo family, Brescia (by 1901–about 1904; sold to Bardini); [Stefano Bardini, Florence, about 1904; sold through A. E. Harnisch to Havemeyer]; Mr. and Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, New York (about 1904–his d. 1907); Mrs. H. O. (Louisine W.) Havemeyer, New York (1907–d. 1929)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The H. O. Havemeyer Collection," March 10–November 2, 1930, no. 105 [2nd ed., 1958, no. 185].

Milwaukee Auditorium. "Metropolitan Art Museum $1,000,000 Masterpiece Exhibition," March 7–14, 1953, unnumbered cat. (p. 7).

Austin, Tex. City Coliseum. "Texas Fine Arts Festival: Metropolitan Museum $1,000,000 Collection of Old Masters," April 18–26, 1953, unnum. checklist.

Osaka. Expo Museum of Fine Arts. "Discovery of Harmony," March 15–September 13, 1970, no. IV-196.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Venetian Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum," May 1–September 2, 1974, no catalogue.

Leningrad [St. Petersburg]. State Hermitage Museum. "100 Paintings from the Metropolitan Museum," May 22–July 27, 1975, no. 6.

Moscow. State Pushkin Museum. "100 Paintings from the Metropolitan Museum," August 28–November 2, 1975, no. 6.

Tulsa. Philbrook Art Center. "Gloria dell'arte: A Renaissance Perspective," October 28, 1979–January 27, 1980, no. 150.

Athens. National Gallery Alexandros Soutzos Museum. "From El Greco to Cézanne: Masterpieces of European Painting from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," December 13, 1992–April 11, 1993, no. 2.

Paris. Musée d'Orsay. "La collection Havemeyer: Quand l'Amérique découvrait l'impressionnisme...," October 20, 1997–January 18, 1998, no. 3.

Detlev von Hadeln. "Some Portraits by Paolo Veronese." Art in America 15 (October 1927), pp. 251–52, attributes it to Veronese; publishes the bust portrait of the sitter (formerly J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu), calling it a study for this painting.

Giuseppe Fiocco. Paolo Veronese, 1528–1588. Bologna, 1928, p. 202, as in the collection of Henry Havemeyer, New York; tentatively identifies the sitter as a member of the Colleoni family; notes that he has not seen the picture.

Frank Jewett Mather Jr. "The Havemeyer Pictures." The Arts 16 (March 1930), pp. 457–58, ill. p. 479, calls it "perhaps the most superbly painted Veronese portrait in the world".

H. O. Havemeyer Collection: Catalogue of Paintings, Prints, Sculpture and Objects of Art. n.p., 1931, pp. 10–11, ill., calls the sitter "probably a member of the Colleoni family".

Bernhard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932, p. 423.

Lionello Venturi. "Sixteenth to Eighteenth Century." Italian Paintings in America. 3, New York, 1933, unpaginated, pl. 569, dates it between 1560 and 1570; notes that it is very similar to Veronese's fresco of a hunter in the Villa Barbaro, Maser.

Lionello Venturi. "Contributi a Paolo Veronese." L'arte 36 (January 1933), p. 46.

Giuseppe Fiocco. Paolo Veronese. Rome, [1934], pp. 55, 127, pl. XCIXb, notes that it resembles a fresco by Veronese in the Villa Chiericati, Longa, near Vicenza.

Bernhard Berenson. Pitture italiane del rinascimento. Milan, 1936, p. 364.

Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, p. 206, ill.

Ellis K. Waterhouse. Reynolds. London, 1941, p. 10, calls it "Portrait of a Young Colleoni" and relates it to Reynolds's portrait of Lord Ludlow (Duke of Bedford, Woburn Abbey).

George Martin Richter. "An Unknown Portrait by Paolo Veronese." Art in America 30 (January 1942), p. 39 n. 1, dates it about 1560.

Edoardo Arslan. Letter. April 21, 1952, calls it a work of collaboration.

Luisa Vertova. Veronese. Milan, 1952, unpaginated, pl. 75, dates it about 1570.

Bernard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Venetian School. London, 1957, vol. 1, p. 134.

Louisine W. Havemeyer. Sixteen to Sixty: Memoirs of a Collector. New York, 1961, pp. 124–28, records the story of the purchase of this picture by her and her husband from a villa outside Brescia; states that Harnisch, through whom they acquired it, claimed that the sitter was a member of the Colleoni family.

Remigio Marini in L'opera completa del Veronese. Milan, 1968, p. 108, no. 111a, ill.

Calvin Tomkins. Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1970, p. 208 [rev., enl. ed., 1989].

Burton B. Fredericksen. Catalogue of the Paintings in the J. Paul Getty Museum. [Malibu], 1972, pp. 36–37, under no. 37, calls it more similar to the fresco at the Villa Barbaro than to the one at the Villa Chiericati [see Refs. Venturi 1933 and Fiocco 1934]; notes that the fabric worn by the sitter is identical to that worn by Saint Barbara (whom he tentatively identifies as Saint Catherine) in versions of the Holy Family in the Uffizi, Florence, and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 39, 525, 607.

Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Venetian School. New York, 1973, p. 87, pl. 98, attribute it to Veronese with some workshop assistance and tentatively date it to the 1570s; note that its appearance has been somewhat changed by old repainting; suggest that it may originally have been one of a series of portraits similar to that in the Villa Barbaro.

Terisio Pignatti. Veronese. Venice, 1976, vol. 1, pp. 122, 191, no. 109; vol. 2, fig. 347, considers it completely autograph and calls Zeri and Gardner's date of 1570 [sic, see Ref. 1973] acceptable only as an outside limit.

Detlev von Hadeln. Paolo Veronese. Florence, 1978, pp. 104, 160, 220, no. 209, fig. 126.

Rodolfo Pallucchini. Veronese. Milan, 1984, p. 171, no. 56, ill., dates it about 1560–61.

Frances Weitzenhoffer. The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes to America. New York, 1986, pp. 140, 256, pl. 102, states that the Havemeyers acquired it through their agent A. E. Harmisch [sic, for Harnisch].

W. R. Rearick. The Art of Paolo Veronese, 1528–1588. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1988, p. 118, under no. 61, relates it to "The Presentation of the Cuccina Family to the Virgin" (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden) of 1571.

Jan Bialostocki. "I cani di Paolo Veronese." Nuovi studi su Paolo Veronese. Venice, 1990, p. 226, fig. 181.

Terisio Pignatti and Filippo Pedrocco. Veronese: catalogo completo dei dipinti. Florence, 1991, p. 156, no. 64, ill., date it about 1560 and relate it to the frescoes at the Villa Barbaro.

Important and Fine Old Master Paintings. Christie's, New York. May 21, 1992, p. 32, under no. 15.

Deborah Krohn et al. in From El Greco to Cézanne: Masterpieces of European Painting from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Exh. cat., National Gallery Alexandros Soutzos Museum. Athens, 1992, pp. 36–37, 305, no. 2, ill. (color) [catalogue section unpaginated].

Keith Christiansen in Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, p. 55, colorpl. 57, notes that cleaning in 1989–90 removed repainting, confirmed Veronese's authorship, and revealed a pentimento of the dog to the left of its present position.

Louisine W. Havemeyer. Sixteen to Sixty: Memoirs of a Collector. 3rd ed. [1st ed. 1930, repr. 1961]. New York, 1993, pp. 96–97, 104, 124–28, 292, 320 nn. 151, 157, p. 322 n. 169, p. 345 n. 471.

Susan Alyson Stein in Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, p. 229.

Gretchen Wold in Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, p. 381, no. A503, ill.

Terisio Pignatti and Filippo Pedrocco. Veronese. Milan, 1995, vol. 1, pp. 235–36, no. 134, ill., date it to the early 1560s.

Gary Tinterow in La collection Havemeyer: Quand l'Amérique découvrait l'impressionnisme. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay. Paris, 1997, pp. 28, 104, no. 3, ill. p. 29 (color), dates it about 1570.

Jane Bridgeman in Giovanni Battista Moroni: Renaissance Portraitist. Exh. cat., Kimbell Art Museum. Fort Worth, 2000, pp. 46–47, 52 n. 14, fig. 27, dates it about 1570 and discusses the clothing.

Harold Koda. Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2001, p. 136, ill. (color, cropped).

Andrea Bayer. "North of the Apennines: Sixteenth-Century Italian Painting in Venice and the Veneto." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 63 (Summer 2005), p. 25, fig. 21 (color), suggests that the picture may originally have had a pendant and may have hung next to a door or other architectural element in order to emphasize its simulated three-dimensionality.

John Garton. Grace and Grandeur: The Portraiture of Paolo Veronese. London, 2008, pp. 100–101, 176–77, 198–99, 210, no. 13, colorpl. 35, ill. p. 198, dates it about 1564–65, comparing it with Veronese's "Holy Family with Saints Catherine and John the Baptist" (Uffizi, Florence).

Xavier F. Salomon. "Review of Ref. Garton 2008." Burlington Magazine 150 (October 2008), p. 694, disagrees with Garton's dating of the picture, stating that the work "is probably later than c. 1564–65 and closer in facture to the Cuccina paintings from the early 1570s" [see Ref. Rearick 1988].

John Garton and Frederick Ilchman in Frederick Ilchman. Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston, 2009, p. 199, fig. 90 (color), believe that it "depicts a similar melancholic portrayal" to Veronese's lost portrait of the poet Sir Philip Sidney.

According to the Martinengo family of Brescia, who once owned this picture, the sitter is a member of the Colleoni family. The Colleoni and Martinengo families were connected by marriage.

A bust portrait of this boy in the same attitude was formerly in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu (sold, Christie's, New York, May 21, 1992, no. 15).