The sitter of this handsome portrait has his right hand placed below his heart, suggesting the content of the letter he has evidently just finished reading. Although the artist remains unnamed, he must have been familiar with the work of Venetian painters such as Lorenzo Lotto (ca. 1480–1556), who spent time in the north Italian city of Bergamo.
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Title:Portrait of a Man in a Fur-Trimmed Coat
Artist:Italian (Lombard) Painter (ca. 1540)
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:38 3/8 x 29 1/2 in. (97.5 x 74.9 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1890
Object Number:91.26.2
[J. H. Ward, London, until 1890, as by Moroni; sold to Marquand]; Henry G. Marquand, New York (1890)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Temporary Exhibition," April 1906, no. 35 (as by Torbido).
Little Rock. Arkansas Arts Center. "Five Centuries of European Painting," May 16–October 26, 1963, unnumbered cat. (p. 14, as by a Bergamask or Brescian painter, second quarter of the 16th century).
Staten Island Community College. October 9–12, 1969, no catalogue?
"Donations of Works of Art in 1890." Annual Report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art no. 21 (1890), p. 478, as by Moroni.
Bernhard Berenson. The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance. 3rd ed. New York, 1894, p. 129 [3rd, illustrated ed., 1897, p. 124], lists it as by Girolamo Savoldo.
Collection of Old Masters and Pictures of the English School in the New Eastern Gallery (Hand-book no. 10). New York, [1894], p. 14, no. 29, as by Giovanni Battista Moroni.
B[ernard]. Berenson. "Les peintures italiennes de New-York et de Boston." Gazette des beaux-arts, 3rd ser., 15 (March 1896), p. 201.
Morton H. Bernath. New York und Boston. Leipzig, 1912, p. 84, attributes it to Moroni.
Bernhard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932, p. 514.
Gertrud Lendorff. Giovanni Battista Moroni, der Porträtmaler von Bergamo. Winterthur, Switzerland, 1933, p. 14, mentions it as by Torbido.
Bernhard Berenson. Pitture italiane del rinascimento. Milan, 1936, p. 442.
W[ilhelm]. Suida inAllgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. Ed. Hans Vollmer. Vol. 33, Leipzig, 1939, p. 284, lists it as by Torbido.
Gertrude Lendorff inGiovanni Battista Moroni, il ritrattista bergamasco. Bergamo, 1939, p. 44 [text similar to Lendorff 1933].
Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, p. 159, ill., attributes it to a Bergamask or Brescian painter and dates it to the second quarter of the sixteenth century.
Luigi Coletti. Letter. December 29, 1949, attributes it to Lorenzo Lotto.
Creighton Gilbert. "Ritrattistica apocrifa savoldesca." Arte veneta 3 (1949), pp. 106–8, fig. 113, tentatively attributes it to Lattanzio Gambara, comparing it with Gambara's self-portrait in the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo, Brescia.
Creighton Gilbert. "Sante Zago e la cultura artistica del suo tempo." Arte veneta 6 (1952), p. 121 n. 1, affirms the attribution to Gambara, comparing the picture with Gambara's portraits in fresco in the nave of the cathedral in Parma.
Luigi Coletti. Lotto. Bergamo, 1953, p. 59, pl. 126.
Anna Banti and Antonio Boschetto. Lorenzo Lotto. Florence, [1953], pp. 108–9, reject the attribution to Lotto, confusing the MMA painting with one formerly in the Rohoncz collection, Munich.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 50.
Piero Bianconi. Tutta la pittura di Lorenzo Lotto. Milan, 1955, pp. 76, 79, lists it under works attributed to Lotto.
Bernard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Venetian School. London, 1957, vol. 1, p. 158.
Antonio Boschetto. Giovan Gerolamo Savoldo. Milan, 1963, p. 226, lists it among works dubiously or erroneously attributed to Savoldo.
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 234, 527, 605, as by an unknown North Italian painter of the sixteenth century.
Denys Sutton, ed. Letters of Roger Fry. New York, 1972, vol. 1, p. 255 n. 1 to letter no. 177 (March 2, 1906), lists it as by Torbido with works included in the 1906 exhibition.
Giordana Mariani Canova inL'opera completa del Lotto. Milan, 1975, p. 125, no. 378, rejects the attribution to Lotto.
Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, North Italian School. New York, 1986, pp. 75–76, pl. 73, state that it was almost certainly painted by a Lombard painter directly influenced by Lotto and who may have been either Bergamask or Brescian since his work anticipates that of Moroni; date it about 1540 on the basis of style and costume; discuss the condition.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 105, ill. p. 106.
Moretto da Brescia (Alessandro Bonvicino) (Italian, Brescia ca. 1498–1554 Brescia)
1554
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