Portrait of a Young Lute Player
Portrait of a Young Lute Player
- Artist
- Bacchiacca
- Artist Dates
- 1494-1557
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- Portrait of a Young Lute Player
- Date
- c. 1524-25
- Medium
- oil on panel
- Dimensions
- 97.5 x 72.1 cm (38-3/8 x 28-3/8 in)
- K Number
- K1729
- Repository
- New Orleans Museum of Art
- Accession Number
- 61.75
- Notes
Provenance
Alexander Barker [d. 1874]. London and Hatfield, South Yorkshire; (his sale, Christie's, London, 6 June 1874, no. 443, bought in); by inheritance to Mr. and Mrs J.E. Roe, executors or heirs of Barker's estate [both died by 1879]; (Roe/Barker sale, Christie's London, 21 June 1879, no. 512); (P. & D. Colnaghi, London). Charles Butler [1822-1910], London, by 1894; [1] Alfred Beit [d. 1906] London amd Tewin Water, Hertford; by inheritance to his brother Sir Otto John Beit, 1st Bart, London and Tewin Water; [2] by inheritance to his daughter Mrs Arthur Clifford Howie Bull, née Alice Angela Beit, Tewin Water and Bryndewen, Gwent, Wales; (her sale, Christie's London, 25 October 1946, no. 4); (Adam). (Robert Langton Douglas [1864-1951], London). [3] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi [1878-1955] Rome-Florence); sold to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation on 1 July 1950; gift to the New Orleans Museum of Art in 1961, n. 61.75. [1] Lent to the New Gallery, London, 1894, no. 264, as Bacchiacca. [2] Published in Catalogue of the collection of pictures and bronzes in the possession of Mr. Otto Beit, by Wilhem von Bode, 1913, p.45, as Bacchiacca. [3] Annotated photo mount in the Witt Library, London.
Catalogue Entry
Bacchiacca
Portrait of a Young Lute Player
K1729
New Orleans, La., Isaac Delgado Museum of Art (61.75), since 1953.(1) Wood. 38 3/8 x 28 3/8 in. (97.5 x 72.1 cm.). Fragmentary inscription on balustrade at lower right apparently meant as: CITO PEDE LABITVR AETAS (Time flies on swift feet). Good condition; few restorations. This well-known example of Bacchiacca's style in portraiture(2) would seem to have belonged to a series illustrating Petrarch's Triumphs. In the background is the chariot of the Triumph of Love, borrowed from an anonymous fifteenth-century Florentine engraver;(3) the groups of Samson and Delilah and Apollo and Daphne are references to the same theme. The lute and the flowers characterize the young man as a lyric poet, and the hourglass and motto beneath it and also the perishable flowers recall the favorite Renaissance theme of youth's brevity. The suggestion that this may be a posthumous portrait (the name of Poliziano has been proposed)(4) is lent some support by the fifteenth-century style of the costume and by the plausible identification of a companion in the series: Bacchiacca's portrait of an Old Man Holding a Skull, in the Museum at Cassel, is probably a posthumous portrait of Pope Hadrian VI.(5) In the background of the Cassel portrait, which is the same size as K1729, is the chariot of the Triumph of Death, taken from an engraving by the anonymous Florentine cited above; the hourglass is repeated from K1729 and beneath it is an appropriate motto. From a third portrait in the series only a fragment of the background, showing the chariot of the Triumph of Time, is preserved.(6) K1729 and the Cassel portrait are both commonly thought to date about 1525.(7) The type of lute in K1729, with five pairs of strings and one single string, has been cited as placing this painting in the last years of Bacchiacca's life;(8) but E. Winternitz (in letter of May 28, 1971) has kindly informed us that 'there is sufficient evidence of this method of stringing even before 1500: see, for instance, the lute played by a beautiful angel in the detail of a painting by Melozzo da Forli [died 1494] in the Pinacoteca Vaticana,' which dates probably before 1480. Provenance: Alexander Barker, London (sold, Christie's, London, June 21, 1879, no. 512, as Bacchiacca; bought by Colnaghi). Charles Butler, London –exhibited: New Gallery, London, 1894, no. 264, as Bacchiacca. Otto Beit, Tewin Water, near Welwyn, England (catalogue by W. von Bode, 1913, p.45, as Bacchiacca). Contini Bonacossi, Florence. Kress acquisition, 1950 –exhibited: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1951;(9) after entering the Isaac Delgado Museum: 'Bacchiacca and His Friends,' Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Md., Jan. 10-Feb. 19, 1961, no. 9 of catalogue, as Bacchiacca; 'Art Treasures for America,' National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Dec. 10, 1961-Feb. 4, 1962, no. 1, as Bacchiacca; 'L' Art et la Musique,' Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux, May 30-Sept. 30, 1969, no. 1, as Bacchiacca.
References
(1) Catalogue by W. E. Suida, 1953, p. 36, and by P. Wescher, 1966, p. 36, as Bacchiacca. (2) K1729 has been included in studies of Bacchiacca by, among others, A. Venturi (Storia dell'arte italiana, vol. IX, pt. I, 1925, pp. 463 f.), A. McComb (in Art Bulletin, vol. VIII, 1926, pp. 157 f.), A. Scharf (in Burlington Magazine, vol. LXX, 1937, pp. 65 f.), F. Schmidt-Degener (in Burlington Magazine, vol. LXXIV, 1939, p. 239), B. Berenson (Italian Pictures ... Florentine School, vol. I, 1963, p. 20, and earlier editions), and L. Nikolenko (Francesco Ubertini, called Il Bacchiacca, 1966, p. 48). (3) See Scharf, loc. cit. in note 2, above. (4) See Suida, loc. cit. in note 1, above. (5) See Schmidt-Degener, pp. 234 ff. of op. cit. in note 2, above. (6) Berenson (vol. I, pp. 19 ff. and vol. II, figs. 1235a, 1237, of op. cit. in note 2, above) indicates that the fragment (whereabouts unknown) is from a companion to K1729 and the portrait in Cassel. (7) See, e.g., McComb, loc. cit. in note 2, above, and Schmidt-Degener, loc. cit. in note 2, above. (8) See A. P. de Mirimonde, in Gazette des Beaux Arts, vol. LXIX, 1967, p. 322. (9) Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection, 1951, p. 128 (catalogue by W. E. Suida), as Bacchiacca.