Emilian School, 16th century

Property of a Private Collector, Sold Without Reserve

Emilian School, 16th century

Portrait of a man in a brown tunic

oil on canvas

canvas: 20 ⅜ by 16 ¼ in.; 51.8 by 41.3 cm.

framed: 27 ⅝ by 23 ⅞ in.; 70.2 by 60.6 cm.
Provenance

With Luigi Grassi, Florence, by 1912;

With Sully, London, by March 1913;

With Fearon Gallery, New York, 1927;

Probably with Thomas Agnew & Sons, London;

Karl Loevenich, Beechhurst, New York;

With Wildenstein Arte S.A., Buenos Aires, Argentina, by 1959;

From whom acquired by a private collector, 1960;

Thence by descent to the present collector.Literature

F.E.W. Freund, "Von amerikanischen Kunsthandel," in Cicerone 19 (1927), p. 249, reproduced fig. 12 (as Lotto);

B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Venetian School, New York 1957, p. 100 (as "Lotto (?)");

B. Berenson, Lotto, Milan 1955, pp. 109, 472 (under "attributed works, studio versions and copies");

P. Bianconi, Tutta la pittura di Lorenzo Lotto, Milan 1955, p. 79 (as attributed to Lotto "with doubts");

B. Berenson, Pitture italiane del Rinascimento, Scuola veneta, London and Florence 1958, vol. I, p. 103;

E. Maria dal Pozzo, Lorenzo Lotto, Catalogo generale dei dipinti, Milan 2021, p. 482, cat. no. V.13, reproduced (as Tuscan or Emilian, second quarter of the sixteenth century).Catalogue note

This portrait depicts a dark-haired, bearded man who wears a black cap and brown satin jacket over a white camincia. The work’s authorship remains enigmatic, but the sitter possesses a psychological presence that evokes the portraits of Lorenzo Lotto, to whom the present painting was formerly attributed. Although that no longer seems tenable, the man’s carefully modelled facial features and costume attest to the artist’s skill.