Portrait of a man,
oil on canvas, 75.5 x 63 cm, framed

The top of the subject’s turban is scarlet red: in the eighteenth century, this was the obligatory colour for headwear in the Jewish community of the Venetian Ghetto, as illustrated during the mid-century in the Abiti de’ veneziani, by Giovanni Grevembroch (see G. Grevembroch, Gli abiti de’ veneziani di quasi ogni età con diligenza raccolti e dipinti nel secolo XVIII, Venice 1981, III, pp. 49-50). If the sitter belonged to this religious group, then he could be of the Jewish division of the Sephardic, like Beniamin Errera represented by Anton Maria Zanetti di Girolamo in his celebrated drawn caricatures, conserved in albums belonging to the British Royal collection and the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice (see E. Lucchese, L’album di caricature di Anton Maria Zanetti alla Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice 2015, pp. 267-268). However, this oriental style of headwear was also worn at the time by people from the territories of the Ottoman Empire residing in Venice, which can sometimes be seen in contemporary view painting by Carlevarijs, Canaletto and others.

Therefore, it may be more accurate to assume that the present painting represents a Levantine, as a portrait or as an example of genre painting or - an idealised character head, that might also have been modelled after an individual.

In eighteenth-century Venice, this particular type of representation, was fueled by the presence of almost the entire corpus of printed works by Rembrandt, which belonged to the above-mentioned Zanetti. Indeed, the presence of this collection is fundamental to an understanding of the Rembrandtism of Marco Ricci, Rosalba Carriera, Giambattista Piazzetta and Giambattista Tiepolo, to name only the most important masters to incorporate and interpret the northern master’s influence (see: C. Gauna, I Rembrandt di Anton Maria Zanetti e le ‘edizioni’ di stampe a venezia: tra tecnica e stile, in: Saggi e Memorie di storia dell’arte, 36, 2012, pp. 189-234).

The inventions of Piazzetta and the Tiepolo family particularly demonstrate an interest in Rembrandt’s poetics in Venice; this is evident in the present painting, which must have been made by an artist whose style reveals a connection with the ambit of Piazzetta. In 1750 Piazzetta became the director of the newly formed Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, and certain elements of his teachings seem to have been employed in the formal depiction of the present Portrait of a a man: notably in the luminous softness of the flesh tones, and the controlled modulation of light and shade.

The realistic impact of the present work – the sitter’s frontal gaze in direct dialogue with the viewer – suggests a broader ambit for its creation, and points to the territories on the borders of Lombardy and Venice, more specifically to the solid painting style of Bartolomeo Nazari (1693-1758). This painter from Bergamo was likewise seduced by the etched creations of Rembrandt. These can even be identified as the source for his precise modelling, his choice of compositional crop and certain qualities of material elegance in the choice of the fabrics he depicted. Such elements also invite comparison with Nazari’s Portrait of Giovanni Bonifacio in the Accademia dei Concordi, Rovigo, datable to circa 1735.

From his earliest youth Nazari was intent on reconciling ‘differing tastes and traditions’ [‘tradizioni e gusti differenti’] (Fisogni, Nazari, Bartolomeo in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 78, Rome 2013), ranging from Pietro Bellotti and Fra’ Galgario to Alessandro Longhi and Piazzetta. Thus, Bartolomeo’s paintings, including his genre productions, presented themselves as an original alternative on the art market. Indeed, Pietro Monaco’s engraving after his lost painting Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, which belonged to the painter (see: M.A. Chiari Moretto Weil, L’eredità di Piazzetta. Volti e figure nell’incisone del Settecento, exhibition catalogue, Venice 1996, p. 7, cat. 7), reveals some affinities with the figure of an oriental in our painting, and can in turn be compared to the late character heads by Nazari, such as those in Dresden and Warsaw (see: F. Noris, Bartolomeo Nazari; Nazario e Giacomina Nazari in: I Pittori Bergamaschi. Il Settecento, I, Bergamo 1982, pp. 230-231, cat. 19, p. 235 cat 41). 

It can be assumed that the Portrait of a man reveals the influence of the painter from Bergamo, who was a founding member of the Venetian Academy, and died unexpectedly in 1758 in Milan, where he had moved on account of new commissions. However, the spirit of introspection that the present painting expresses can be better compared to the achievements of Domenico Tiepolo, who handled themes taken from life, which highlighted the maturity of his creative independence from the genius of his father. The canvas representing the Head of a Man in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, as well as the etching in the first book of the Raccolta di teste of 1774, derived from the painting in the Royal Academy of San Fernando, Madrid, can be singled out from many examples of Giandomenico’s work. They demonstrate his meditations upon his father’s and Rembrandt’s repertory (see: D. Succi, La Serenissima nello specchio di rame. Splendore di una civiltà figurative del Settecento. L’opera completa dei grandi maestri veneti, II, Castelfranco Veneto 2013, pp. 503-504, p. 589, cat. 119).

To understand the different influences recognisable in the present painting, it is necessary to look at the first members of the Venetian Academy, and in particular at the Reception Scenes in Palazzo Grassi, which were executed in fresco by Michelangelo Morlaiter around 1770. These seem to present themselves as a starting point for a scientific reconstruction of a phase in Venetian art connoted by a similar ‘gusto dell’osservazione non comune, già preottocentesca’ [‘uncommon taste for observation that anticipates the nineteenth century’] (see: R. Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del Settecento, Venice-Rome 1960, p. 233).

We are grateful to Enrico Lucchese for his help in cataloguing this lot.