Portrait of a Bearded Man with a Large Hat

Author: Rosie Razzall

This arresting portrait of a bearded man with a large hat has never been published before, and while a certain attribution remains elusive it was most likely made by an artist from the Veneto or Lombardy in the first decades of the sixteenth century. The paper carries a wheel-shaped watermark that is possibly associated with a papermill in Battaglia, near Padua.^[1] Further evidence for the sheet having been drawn by an artist in this vicinity is the large, floppy hat, reminiscent of those worn in this part of northern Italy in the 1510s and 1520s, and appearing for example in portraits by Dosso Dossi (1486/1487-1541/1542) in Paris,^[2] or Bartolomeo Veneto (active 1502-1531) in Madrid.^[3]

The cluster of circular badges briefly indicated on the hat, as well as the string of beads worn around the neck, suggest that this man may be a pilgrim. However, there is no obvious scallop shell, the symbol of St James, patron saint of pilgrims among the badges, and the figure does not hold a staff, which would be another more overt signifier of pilgrimage. The verso of the sheet is blackened with chalk and the outlines of the man’s face have been incised and rubbed through, suggesting that the design was transferred to another surface, probably with the intention of turning it into a painting. However, no connection has yet been made with any painted portraits from the period, and the identity of the man remains a mystery.

The drawing has an old attribution to Gaudenzio Ferrari (1477/1478-1546) that dates back to at least the nineteenth century, but it is more dynamically drawn than the few known sheets by Ferrari’s hand. More recent scholars have compared it to artists working in Lombardy and the Veneto,^[4] where there was an established tradition of portrait painting. However, the drawings of Bartolomeo Veneto, such as that of a young nobleman in a decorated cap in Vienna,^[5] are too smooth in finish to be by the same hand as the Rotterdam sheet. On the other hand, the handling of chalk in the drawings of the Brescian painter Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo (1480/1485-1548) is too soft and atmospheric.^[6] Dosso Dossi, who worked in Ferrara but absorbed many of the lessons of Venetian artists, made a small number of painted portraits.^[7] The facial features of his sitters are often characterfully painted, with wrinkles around the eyes and a direct gaze. His early painting A Court Buffoon in Modena^[8] is full of expressive character, some of which can perhaps be found in the Rotterdam drawing. However, Dossi is barely known as a draughtsman,^[9] and an attribution to him for this sheet would only be rather speculative. The subtle modelling of the facial features, enhanced with touches of pink and yellow chalk, nevertheless suggest the work of a skilled draughtsman, and the piercing gaze of the sitter is strikingly engaging.