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Portrait of a Man with a Cap, in Profile Facing Right

Portrait of a Man with a Cap, in Profile Facing Right

Attributed to: Francesco Bonsignori (in circa 1485-1490)

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Specifications

Title Portrait of a Man with a Cap, in Profile Facing Right
Material and technique Black chalk
Object type
Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location This object is in storage
Dimensions Width 99 mm
Height 127 mm
Artists Attributed to: Francesco Bonsignori
Previously attributed: Giovanni Bellini
Previously attributed: Gentile Bellini
Accession number I 197 (PK)
Credits Loan Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (former Koenigs collection), 1940
Department Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date 1940
Creation date in circa 1485-1490
Watermark none (vH, 3P)
Inscriptions '[...]' (verso, below right, pen and brown, illegible due to backing paper), 'Giovanni Bellini?' (old passe-partout)
Collector Collector / Franz Koenigs
Mark F.W. Koenigs (L.1023a on backing paper)
Provenance Archduke Frederick of Austria, Vienna (L.960 deest), acquired in 1913, coll. deposited in the Albertina, Vienna, in 1918/1923; (?) art market London 1925; art dealer Paul Cassirer, Amsterdam; Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941, L.1023a), Haarlem, acquired in 1925 (Gentile Bellini); D.G. van Beuningen (1877-1955), Rotterdam, acquired with the Koenigs Collection in 1940 and donated to Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Exhibitions Haarlem 1926-1927, no. 38; Amsterdam 1934, no. 489 ; Paris 1935, no. 513; Paris/Rotterdam/Haarlem 1962, no. 31; Venice/Florence 1985, no. 21; Rotterdam 2010 (coll 2 kw 7); Rotterdam (Rondom Fra B.) 2016
Internal exhibitions Italiaanse tekeningen in Nederlands bezit (1962)
De Collectie Twee - wissel VII, Prenten & Tekeningen (2010)
Rondom Fra Bartolommeo (2016)
Research Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Literature Meder 1922, no. 3 (Netherlandish); Haarlem 1926-1927, no. 38 (Ant. da Messina); Amsterdam 1934, no. 489 (attr. Gentile Bellini); Paris 1935, no. 513 (Giov. Bellini?);Tietze/Tietze-Conrat 1944, no. A 268 (rejected attr. to Gentile Bellini); Paris/Rotterdam/Haarlem 1962, no. 31, pl. 26 (Giov. Bellini); Byam Shaw 1967, p. 45, fig. 1; Aikema/Meijer 1985, no. 21, ill. (attr. Giovanni Bellini); Heinemann 1991, p. 95, no. V. 477 bis. (copy after Gentile Bellini by Bonsignori)
Material
Object
Geographical origin Italy > Southern Europe > Europe
Place of manufacture Venice > Veneto region > Italy > Southern Europe > Europe

Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Author: Albert Elen

Francesco Bonsignori, 'Portrait of a Venetian senator' (possibly Giovanni Cappello), 1487, black chalk, heightened with white, on brownish paper, 359 x 262 mm, Vienna, Albertina

Opinions about the maker of this small profile portrait differ in the literature. Meder (1922) regarded it as Dutch, by an unknown medallist. Not much later (Haarlem 1926-27) the drawing was given to Antonello da Messina (c.1430-1479), while just before that, in 1925, Koenigs had acquired it as anonymous Italian, fifteenth century. Koenigs’s assistant, Helmuth Lütjens, in turn, listed it as by Gentile Bellini (c. 1430/1434-1507), which was understandable given the similarities to male heads in the large historical paintings by this Venetian artist. This attribution held, with interruptions, alternating with one (Paris/Rotterdam/Haarlem 1962 and Aikema/Meijer 1985) to his brother Giovanni Bellini (c.1430-1516). In 1991, in the supplement to his standard work Bellini e i Belliniani (1991), Heinemann regarded it as a secure copy by Francesco Bonsignori, however without indicating which specific example this was based on.

A number of Belliniesque paintings of the Virgin and Child in a window by the Veronese artist Bonsignori, a pupil and assistant of Andrea Mantegna (c.1431-1506), are known, as well as a 1487 portrait of an older man, possibly the Venetian senator Giovanni Cappello, now in London.[1] The preliminary study for this is held in Vienna (fig.).[2] Although rendered in three-quarter face and worked out in detail on a sheet of paper that is much larger than the Rotterdam fragment, we see similar skill in the realistically depicted physiognomy. In Vienna there is moreover a large profile portrait of an unknown man with a cap attributed to Bonsignori.[3] Both Viennese portraits are finished drawings. The Rotterdam drawing, by contrast, is a swiftly sketched study in which the artist’s attention was concentrated on the face with a half-closed eye, a raised eyebrow and tight lips. Given its simpler design, the portrait with its striking, expressive physiognomy was probably a preliminary study for a painted portrait which, like the Vienna drawings, was intended to be a stand-alone portrait or part of a larger composition.

Footnotes

[1] National Gallery, inv. NG736.

[2] Albertina, inv. 17672.

[3] Albertina, inv. 17612.

Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
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All about the artist

Francesco Bonsignori

Verona circa 1455 - Caldiero 1519

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