Portrait of a Young Man
Portrait of a Young Man
- Artist
- Bernardino Licinio
- Artist Dates
- active c. 1511-1549
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- Portrait of a Young Man
- Date
- c. 1524
- Medium
- oil on panel
- Dimensions
- 30.5 x 24.5 cm (12 x 9-5/8 in)
- K Number
- K1051
- Repository
- Howard University Gallery of Art
- Accession Number
- 61.151.P
- Notes
Provenance
Andrea Vendramin, Venice, c. 1627. [1] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi [1878-1955] Rome-Florence); sold to Samuel H. Kress [1863-1955], on 18 October 1936; gift to Howard University Gallery of Art in 1961, Washington, DC, no. 61.151.P [1] No. 56B of the 1627 illustrated inventory of the collection reproduced and described by Tancred Borenius, The Picture Gallery of Andrea Vendramin, London, 1923.
Catalogue Entry
Bernardino Licinio
Portrait of a Young Man
K1051
Washington, D.C., Howard University, Study Collection (61.151.P), since 1961.(1) Wood. 12 X 9 5/8 in. (30.5 X 24.5 cm.). Abraded throughout, especially on robe; cleaned 1961. The attribution to Licinio is confirmed by the close similarity of K1051 to signed or fully accepted portraits by this artist.(2) Remarkably close parallels are found among the heads in the Family Group by Licinio in the Royal Collections at Hampton Court. Here the boys wear their hair in the same style and are dressed in similar costumes, and all look out of the picture with the same pensive, Giorgionesque expression. The Hampton Court painting is dated 1524; K1051 may be assigned to the same period. The correct position of the sitter's left hand, which had been left unfInished originally (as recent cleaning has shown – see Fig. 405) and then hidden by repaint, had been indicated in a drawing after the portrait when it was in the Vendramin Collection, Venice, in the seventeenth century.(3) K1051 is one of the very few paintings from that important collection which are now known. Provenance: Andrea Vendramin, Venice (1627). Contini Bonacossi, Florence. Kress acquisition, 1936 – exhibited: 'Giorgione and His Circle,' Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., Feb. 23-Mar. 21,1942, no. 31, as Licinio; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (855), 1945-51, as Licinio; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Ala., 1952-59.(4)
References
(1) Catalogue by J. A. Porter, 1961, no. 10, as Licinio. (2) K1051 has been attributed to Licinio by G. Fiocco, R. Longhi, F. M. Perkins, A. Venturi (in ms. opinions), W. E. Suida (in Art Quarterly, vol. IX, 1946, p. 284), H. Tietze (in Arte Veneta, vol. I, 1947, p. 141), B. Berenson (Italian Pictures ... Venetian School, vol. I, 1957, p. 96), and R. Pallucchini (in Arte Veneta, vol. XX, 1966, p. 92). (3) The drawing, unlabeled, appears on fol. 68 of the Vendramin manuscript catalogue (Sloane ms. 4004); it is on pl. 56A of T. Borenius's publication of the manuscript: The Picture Gallery of Andrea Vendramin, 1923. The identifIcation of this drawing with K1051 was recognized when the painting came to the National Gallery; it was first published by Suida (loc. cit. in note 2, above). (4) Catalogue by W. E. Suida, 1952, p. 51, as Licinio.