1 / 1

download image
This image is in the public domain. You can copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. Learn more about our image policies.

North Italian 15th Century

Francesco Sforza, probably c. 1480/1500

Not on View

Medium

oil on panel

Dimensions

painted surface: 69.5 x 59.5 cm (27 3/8 x 23 7/16 in.)
overall (with backing, collar, and cradle): 72.4 x 62.1 cm (28 1/2 x 24 7/16 in.)

framed: 103.5 x 92.7 x 8.9 cm (40 3/4 x 36 1/2 x 3 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Widener Collection

Accession Number

1942.9.4

Artists / Makers

North Italian 15th Century (painter)

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

lower center on breastplate: AN . MANTINIA / PINX.ANNO / M.CCCC / LV.

Provenance

Cardinal Antonio Barberini [1607-1671], Rome;[1] by inheritance to Cardinal Carlo Barberini [1630-1704], Rome; by inheritance through the Barberini family to Carlo's grandniece, Cornelia Costanza [1716-1797]; by her marriage, into the Colonna di Sciarra family; collection divided in 1812 and painting passed into the Carbognano branch of the family; by inheritance to Maffeo Barberini Colonna di Sciarra, Principe di Carbognano [1850-1925], Rome; sold c. 1895 in Paris.[2] (Leo Nardus [1868-1955], Suresnes, France, and New York); sold 1898 to Peter A.B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania;[3] inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park; gift 1942 to NGA.

[1] Leone Vicchi, Dieci quadri della Galleria Sciarra, Rome, 1889: cat. 1, first reproduced the painting, then in the Colonna di Sciarra collection. That the painting had been in the Barberini collection, part of which went to the Colonna di Sciarra (see Dennis Mahon, "Fresh Light on Caravaggio's Earliest Period: His 'Cardsharps' Recovered," The Burlington Magazine 130, no. 1018 [January 1988]: 17-18), is proven by its apparent inclusion in seventeenth-century Barberini inventories (Marilyn A. Lavin, Seventeenth-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art, New York, 1975: 298, 338, 442, cats. IV. inv. 71.138, IV. hered. 72.59, VI. inv. 92-04.365). A 1671 inventory made at the death of Cardinal Antonio Barberini includes the following description of a male portrait: "Un altro [ritratto] d'Un huomo Armato con Berrettone rosso in Capo di Andrea Mantegna" ("a portrait of an armed man with a large cap on his head by Andrea Mantegna"). Another inventory of 1692-1704 gives the height of the same painting: "Un altro [ritratto] di un huomo armato in Tavola con beretta rossa in Tela da tre p. mi." The description, the measurement (corresponding to about 68 cm.), and the attribution (matching the spurious inscription) all point to the Gallery's panel. If an entry in a 1641 Barberini inventory (Lavin 1975: 167, cat. IV. inv. 44.240) listing "Un ritratto di un huomo armato, con una beretta rossa in testa, con cornice nera con filetti d'oro" also refers to the painting, the inscription would presumably have been added in the middle years of the seventeenth century. The inheritance from Antonio to Carlo Barberini may have been through Antonio's brother, Francesco, who died in 1679.

[2] According to Mahon 1988: 19, Prince Sciarra had several of his paintings brought to Paris between December 1891 and January 1892. That the Gallery's "Mantegna" was among them is proven by a passage Mahon quotes from Elisabeth de Clermont-Tonnerre, Mémoires, Paris, 1928: 1:132-133. Legal obstacles probably prevented Sciarra from selling the painting until 1895 or 1896 (Mahon 1988: 20).

[3] According to Widener collection records, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Barberini, Antonio, Cardinal
Barberini, Carlo, Cardinal
Colonna di Sciarra, Cornelia Costanza
Colonna di Sciarra, Principe di Carbognano, Maffeo Barberini
Nardus, Leo
Widener, Joseph E.
Widener, Peter Arrell Brown

Bibliography

1916: Berenson, Bernard, and William Roberts. Pictures in the Collection of P.A.B. Widener at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania: Early Italian and Spanish Schools. Philadelphia, 1916: unpaginated, repro., as Portrait Bust of an Elderly Warrior.

1923: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1923: unpaginated, repro., as Portrait Bust of an Elderly Warrior.

1931: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 138, repro., as Portrait Bust of an Elderly Warrior.

1942: Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 5, as Portrait of an Elderly Warrior.

1948: Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 11, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 16.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 9, repro.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 32, 646, as by Francesco Bonsignori.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 36, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:75-77; 2:pl. 49.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 54, repro.

2002: Quodbach, Esmée. "The Last of the American Versailles: The Widener Collection at Lynnewood Hall." Simiolus 29, no. 1/2 (2002): 94.

2003: Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 547-550, color repro.