(Bologna 1552–1614 Rome)
Portrait of an adolescent boy by a desk, with a dog,
oil on canvas, 225 x 145 cm, framed

Provenance:
Possibly Sampieri collection, Bologna;
Private European collection (since circa 1950, acquired by the father of the present owner)

Literature:
V. Fortunati, in. V. Fortunati (ed.), Lavinia Fontana of Bologna 1552-1614, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1998, pp. 16-17, fig. 6 (as Lavinia Fontana);
C. P. Murphy, Lavinia Fontana. A Painter and her Patrons in Sixteenth-century Bologna, New Haven/London 2003, p. 180, fig. 169 (as Lavinia Fontana)

We are grateful to Maria Teresa Cantaro for confirming the attribution after the examination of the present painting in the original and for her help in cataloguing this lot.

The Portrait of a Youth was first published with this attribution by Vera Fortunati in 1998. The attribution to Lavinia Fontana was accepted by Caroline Murphy, who dated the painting to around 1585 to 1590, observing that the green curtain seen here on the right hand side, is also to be observed in other works by the artist dating to the last decade of the sixteenth century (see literature). Indeed, the composition of this work corresponds closely with the portraits from Lavinia Fontana’s mature period, bearing many stylistic similarities to the artist’s corpus of works. Additionally, and more generally, it also shares same aesthetic concerns which evidently motivated the artist’s oeuvre at the time.

In the present portrait, the subject, a corpulent, somewhat arrogant looking youth, is depicted full-length, the fingers of his right hand resting on his hip and forming a ‘V’ – a gesture that, in iconographic terms, might, as Mauro Zanchi has suggested, bear a magical, superstitious power against illness and death (see M. Zanchi, Letture iconologiche. Il gesto a ‘V’ rovesciata nell’arte del Cinquecento. Sotto il segno di Diana, in: Art e Dossier, no. 315, November 2014, pp. 72-77; M. Zanchi, Studi e scoperte. 1. Il gesto delle corna. Magico, sacrale, scaramantico, in: Art e Dossier, no. 368, January 2016, pp. 58–63; M. Zanchi, Magismo nel gesto. I segni delle corna nell’Arte, Bergamo 2016, pp. 55-76).

The youth is depicted in an inner chamber of a noble house, which is alluded to by the polished floor of polychrome geometric marble slabs, which also give an impression of the depth of the pictorial space. This type of floor covering also appears in Lavinia’s father, Prospero’s work, in around 1580, and is also typical of her work as it reoccurs in several of her paintings (see for example Christ in the house of Marth and Mary in the Conservatorio di Santa Marta in Bologna; the Portrait of the Gozzadini Family of 1584 and the San Francesco di Paola blessing a Child of 1590, both in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna as well as the Holy Family with the sleeping Christ Child, the Infant Saint John the Baptist and Saint Elisabeth of 1591 in the National Museum, Stockholm, which is an autograph replica of the work in the Galleria Borghese, Rome – see M. T. Cantaro, op. cit., 1989, pp. 96, 117, 151, 157). A similar floor also appears in the signed and dated Portrait of Count Gentile Sassatelli of 1581 in the Klesch collection, London.

The sitter in the present portrait wears a deep red velvet doublet closed by a tight fitting line of buttons down the chest, over which he wears an open black waistcoat buttoned at the neck; white lace shirt cuffs emerge from his sleeves and he wears a white ruff at his neck; his matching red breaches reach to the knee, and from within them emerges an embroidered pink silk pouch; he wears red socks and his outfit is completed by light tan-coloured leather shoes. On the little finger of his right hand the youth wears a gold ring with a cross bearing the inscription ‘INRI’ – the inclusion of such a ring, which appears to be so carefully represented possibly suggests that the sitter belonged to a secular confraternity such as the Confraternità del Crocifisso del Cestello founded at Bologna in 1514, following a miraculous event of a cross painted on the exterior wall of the church in via del Cestello, near the Aposa torrent (also called Avesa). In 1516, the site subsequently became the seat of the confraternity (see P. Masini, Bologna perlustrata, Bologna 1666, vol. I, pp. 301-302, 455; and also M. Fini, Bologna sacra: tutte le chiese in due millenni di storia, Bologna 2007, p. 59). The founders and benefactors of the confraternity included members of several noble Bolognese families such as the Caprai, the Accursio, the Odofredi and others, including the Sampieri. If the youth depicted here, belonged to this confraternity, the patrons of the present painting may have belonged to one of the families listed here, but there is nothing to confirm this. Admission to the confraternity was permitted from the age of sixteen.

On 26 March 1580, a papal bull issued by Gregory XIII, combined the Compagnia del Cestello in Bologna with that of the Santissimo Crocifisso di San Marcello in Rome, thereby pairing the two confraternities. The confraternity was supressed on 27 July 1798 under Napoleonic law, but was subsequently permitted to reassemble in 1803 (see A. M. Porcu, Il Santuario e la Confraternita del SS. Crocifisso del Cestello in Bologna, Bologna 1961, in part. pp. 15, 61, 65, 81).

Alongside the imposing figure of the youth who is painted larger than life-size, there is a table covered by an orange velvet drape, on which various objects are tidily arranged, as if to signal the sitter’s qualifications. He appears to be a scholar of mathematics and engineering. Indeed, there is a compass with open points projecting from the table edge in trompe-l’oeil and a large compartmentalised ink-well tray. Various books of differing sizes are also arranged on the table, as well as some sheets of white paper and a ruler. Finally, placed on the table is an elegant case for instruments, made of enameled and engraved metal. Emerging from it, the hooped handles of a pair of scissors and the handles of various other metallic objects are visible. The cover of the case rests on the table at an angle, two tassels serving to close it, and perhaps also to allow it to be worn around the neck. The compass and ruler have been removed from the case, so as to be made visible to the viewer.

The theatrical use of the curtain, is a motif used by Lavinia from 1589 onwards, first appearing in her painting of the Holy Family with the sleeping Christ Child and the infant Saint John the Baptist which was made for the King of Spain and was destined for the Monastery of the Escorial, and is repeated in the small-scale replicas of that work. The curtain reoccurs in the Nativity of the Virgin made for Santa Trinità in Bologna (1590), as well as in the Portrait of Brigida Righi (1591), in the Venus and Cupid (1592) in the Musée des Beaux Arts, Rouen and the Portrait of Costanza Alidosi (circa 1595) in the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington. Finally, it occurs again in the painting entitled Minerva dressing (1613) in the Galleria Borghese, Rome, which is the last known documented work by Lavinia Fontana, in which the same green curtain can be seen, evidently made of the same material, and serving the same compositional purpose as in the present portrait (see M. T. Cantaro, op. cit., 1989, pp. 146-147, 156-157, 152- 153, 160-161, 172-173, 222-224).

The austere composition of this painting which conforms to the international standard of portraiture diffused throughout the courts of Europe at the time, is interrupted by the addition of a little dog emerging from beneath the table. The animal lends a cheerful lightness to the scene, apparently showing up against his young master’s wishes, and thereby interrupting the cool rigidity of the composition.

Murphy identified a related drawing of a Portrait of a Youth in the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence (inv. no. 12189F, black and red chalk 7.7 x 6 cm, see fig. 1), which she proposes as the preparatory study for the features of the young man depicted in the present painting. Indeed the distinctive form of the face, nose, eyes, mouth, and ear, the roundness of the chin, the short cut of the hair, the shape of the head and even the point of view, turned to three quarters – all correspond, as does the sure, determined gaze of the sitter, in both the drawing and the painting. Only the youth’s collar differs, but this may simply reflect the different clothes he was wearing when sitting for his sketched portrait and for the final painting, in which he is portrayed wearing official dress.

According to Cantaro, this portrait dates to the early 1590s, as does the related drawing. Another distinctive feature of this portrait is the somewhat presumptuous pose of the sitter, signalled by the arm bent at the elbow with the hand resting on the hip, a typically bold and confident position, which, in addition to signalling character, was frequently used as a compositional device to balance the sitter. Lavinia Fontana had also used such devices in her Portrait of Conte Gentile Sassatelli, a nobleman of Imola (signed and dated 1581, oil on canvas, 217.5 x 120 cm, Sotheby’s Milan, 14 June 2011, lot 18, as Ritratto di gentiluomo in arme). acquired through Christie’s 2018 by the Klesch Collection, London). Here, as in the present painting, the subject is shown in full-length, standing beside a table, and in accordance with the recurrent formula Fontana used for her official portraits, the sitter is portrayed in a similar interior, with the same type of paving which is this case, is emphasised by an open door giving on to a succession of three rooms, and culminating in a glazed window. This type of setting which was conceived by her father Prospero, was frequently used by Lavinia, especially in her early works, however, in the present portrait, Lavinia instead elects to hide this area of the composition with the addition of the curtain, choosing a more closed, theatrical setting.

Despite the many compositional similarities between these two portraits, in the opinion of Cantaro, the present portrait dates to about a decade after that of Sassatelli (1581) and to about eight years after the creation of the monumental Portrait of the Gozzadini family (1583), conserved in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, a painting which certainly influenced the rigorous composition of the present painting, while conforming with the prevailing style of official portraiture. Moreover, the present work reveals a more concise and contained description of the subject within a more confined space, allowing Lavinia to focus more precisely on the sitter and the essentials of the tools of his profession.

At present it is not possible to reveal the identity of this young fifteen- or sixteen-year old scholar. However, the presence of the compass, ink-well and measuring instruments do allow for the individual to be identified as an aspiring architect. These objects, in particular the compass, repeatedly appear in earlier, contemporary and later portraits of members of this profession. Some notable examples include the Portrait of an Architect by Lorenzo Lotto (circa 1535, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin), the Portrait of an Architect by Bernardino Licinio (1541, Royal Collection Trust, Kensington Palace, London), the Portrait of Domenico Fontana of by Federico Zuccari (1585-90, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Brera, Milan), the Portrait of Carlo Maderno by an anonymous artist from Bergamo (1615-20, Museo d’Arte della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano) and the Portrait of an Architect of, possibly to be identified as Giuseppe Calzolari, painted by Giuseppe Maria Crespi (1730, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna).