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A young man with smooth, pale peachy skin and long blond hair looks over his right shoulder at us in this vertical portrait painting. He has light green eyes, a straight nose, full pink lips, and a narrow chin. His hair falls over his shoulders, and a long sideburn reaches to his jawline on the side facing us. Shown against a background of emerald green, he wears a black floppy cap and a blue garment that splits over his shoulder. A ruffle of white is visible at the wide neckline, and the sleeve of his right arm, which faces us, is black. He holds his left hand, farther away from us, to his chest, and he wears a gold ring with a green stone on his pointer finger.

Raphael

Bindo Altoviti, c. 1515

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 20

Medium

oil on panel

Dimensions

overall: 59.7 x 43.8 cm (23 1/2 x 17 1/4 in.)

framed: 86.2 x 70.8 x 8.4 cm (33 15/16 x 27 7/8 x 3 5/16 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1943.4.33

Artists / Makers

Raphael (artist) Marchigian, 1483 - 1520

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Commissioned by the sitter, then by inheritance in the Altoviti family, Rome and later Florence;[1] sold November 1808 via Johann Metzger to Ludwig I, King of Bavaria [1786-1868]; presented to the Alte Pinakothek, Munich; traded September 1938 to (Thos. Agnew and Sons, Ltd., London);[2] sold October 1938 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[3] sold 1940 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1943 to NGA.

[1] The complete provenance of this painting is described in David Alan Brown and Jane Van Nimmen, Raphael & the Beautiful Banker, New Haven and London, 2005.

[2] Regarding deaccessions from the Pinakothek, see also Jonathan Petropoulos, The Faustian Bargain, Oxford, 2000: 31+.

[3] The painting is listed in the General Stock Book of Duveen Brothers that covers the period 1 June 1937 to April 1941 (copy in NGA curatorial files; Duveen Brothers Records, Accession No. 960015, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Reel 66, Box 186).

[4] See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/390.

Associated Names

Alte Pinakothek
Altoviti Family
Dillis, Johann Georg von
Duveen Brothers, Inc.
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Ludwig I, King of Bavaria

Exhibition History

1983: Raphael and America, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1983, no. 98, repro.

2003: Raphael, Cellini & A Renaissance Banker: The Patronage of Bindo Altoviti, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, 2003-2004, no. 8, fig. 35, frontispiece.

2009: From Raphael to the Carracci: the Art of Papal Rome, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2009, no. 11, repro.

2012: Late Raphael, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid; Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2012-2013, no. 77, repro.

2017: Raphael, Albertina, Vienna, 2017-2018.

Bibliography

1941: Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: nos. 136-137, repros.

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 163, no. 534.

1941: Richter, George Martin. "The New National Gallery in Washington." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 78 (June 1941): 178.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 250, repro. 175.

1944: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 50, color repro.

1944: Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 37, repro.

1945: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 116, repro.

1956: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 20, repro.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 98, repro.

1961: Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 107, repro. 97, color pl. 98.

1962: Neugass, Fritz. "Die Auflösung der Sammlung Kress." Die Weltkunst 32 (1 January, 1962): 4.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 306, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 107.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:132, color repro.

1968: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:355.

1968: Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 11, 44-45, color repro.

1968: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 105-106, fig. 255-256.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 280, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:394-396; 2:pl. 280.

1982: Alsop, Joseph. The Rare Art Traditions: The History of Art Collecting and Its Linked Phenomena Wherever These Have Appeared. Bollingen series 35, no. 27. New York, 1982: 452.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 180, no. 200, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 326, repro.

1990: Campbell, Lorne. Renaissance Portraits: European Portrait-Painting in the 14th, 15th, and 16th Centuries. New Haven, 1990: 101, fig. 118.

1991: Morandotti, Alessandro. "La fortuna collezionistica della pittura gotica e rinascimentale fra Ottocento e Novecento." In Mauro Natale, ed. Pittura italiana dal '300 al '500. Milan, 1991: 39, 43.

1994: Costamagna, Philippe. Pontormo. Milan, 1994: 42, 138, 321.

2005: Brown, David Alan and Jane Van Nimmen. Raphael & the Beautiful Banker: The Story of the Bindo Altoviti Portrait. New Haven and London, 2005.

2006: Rosenberg, Pierre. Only in America: One Hundred Paintings in American Museums Unmatched in European Collections. Milan, 2006: 16, 17, color fig. 16.

2009: Baumstark, Reinhold, et al. Kurfürst Johann Wilhelms Bilder. 3 vols. Exh. cat. Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 2009: 1:245, 247 n. 64.

2011: Boskovits, Miklós, ed. The Alana Collection, Newark, Delaware, USA. Vol. II: Italian Paintings and Sculptures from the Fourteenth to Sixteenth Century. Florence, 2011: 237.

2013: Harris, Neil. Capital Culture: J. Carter Brown, the National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience. Chicago and London, 2013: 465.

2013: Hodge, Susie. Raphael: His Life and Works in 500 Images. Wigston, Leicestershire, 2013: 205, color fig.

2013: "Vasari and the National Gallery of Art." National Gallery of Art Bulletin 48 (Spring 2013): 16-17, repro.

2014: Jordán de Urríes y de la Colina, Javier. "El primer autorretrato de Mengs." Ars Magazine 7, no. 24 (octubre-diciembre 2014): 68, color fig

2014: Mims, Bryan. "Asheville's Fortress of Art." Our State Down Home in North Carolina (1 October 2014): 40-42, 44, repro.

2015: Brown, David Alan. "Looking Backward; Americans Collect Italian Renaissance Art." In A Market for Merchant Princes: Collecting Italian Renaissance Paintings in America ed. Inge Reist. (The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Art Collecting in America, 2) University Park, Pennsylvania, 2015: 8.

2016: Jaques, Susan. The Empress of Art: Catherine the Great and the Transformation of Russia. New York, 2016: 398.

2016: Rather, Susan. The American School: Artists and Status in the Late Colonial and Early National Era. New Haven, 2016: 98-99, color fig. 77; 247 note 31.

2022: Speelman, Anthony. A Tale of Two Monkeys: Adventures in the Art World. London, 2022: 75, 76, color fig. 28.

2024: Rath, Markus. "Grundmuster: Ausdrucksfunktionen des monochromen Hintergrundes im Renaissanceporträt" Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 87, no. 1 (2024): 105, fig. 25, 116, nn. 86, 87.