DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68073#0088
62
OLD WORLD MASTERS
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.
Sandro Botticelli Collection of
{1444-1510}. Mr. Clarence II. Mackay.
Standing behind a balustrade and looking wistfully toward the
observer, this handsome young Florentine appears at half-length with
his head inclined towards the left.
How we should like to penetrate his secret and help him away from
the melancholy mood that has overwhelmed him!
Although we see that he is a dreamer (and most probably a lute-
player as his hands might seem to indicate), something has touched
him very deeply—far too deeply to be classed as a momentary sorrow.
We should also like to know his identity. It is unlikely that it will
ever be revealed. But of one thing we can be well assured,—he is an
aristocrat and a young gentleman of wealth, for he has all the air of
savoir fair e and sureness of his position. We might make a guess that
he is one of the Medici family. Could it be Giuliano? Look again at
the Madonna of the Magnificat, at Giuliano immediately below the
bending Angel! The resemblance is quite surprising and grows stronger
as we study the two faces, only in the Madonna of the Magnificat
Giuliano is younger and is seen with the characteristic lock on his
forehead.
His costume in this portrait shows up well from the black back-
ground : the coat is purplish brown edged with fur with white puffs at
the shoulders; and a red cap contrasts well with his light-yellow hair.
This picture, a tempera painting on panel (15^ x n^4), was long
in the Collection of Baron Arthur de Schickler in Martinvast, Nor-
mandy, where it was attributed to Masaccio.
“There can be no question,” Berenson thinks, “that this portrait
is Botticelli’s own handiwork. The glamor it cast when I first saw it
frightened me into doubts that were dispelled directly I could study
the painting at my leisure. There is no one, using this formula and
technique, but Sandro himself who has the sinuous line, the inevitable
contours, the structural articulation, the firmness, convincingness, and
OLD WORLD MASTERS
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.
Sandro Botticelli Collection of
{1444-1510}. Mr. Clarence II. Mackay.
Standing behind a balustrade and looking wistfully toward the
observer, this handsome young Florentine appears at half-length with
his head inclined towards the left.
How we should like to penetrate his secret and help him away from
the melancholy mood that has overwhelmed him!
Although we see that he is a dreamer (and most probably a lute-
player as his hands might seem to indicate), something has touched
him very deeply—far too deeply to be classed as a momentary sorrow.
We should also like to know his identity. It is unlikely that it will
ever be revealed. But of one thing we can be well assured,—he is an
aristocrat and a young gentleman of wealth, for he has all the air of
savoir fair e and sureness of his position. We might make a guess that
he is one of the Medici family. Could it be Giuliano? Look again at
the Madonna of the Magnificat, at Giuliano immediately below the
bending Angel! The resemblance is quite surprising and grows stronger
as we study the two faces, only in the Madonna of the Magnificat
Giuliano is younger and is seen with the characteristic lock on his
forehead.
His costume in this portrait shows up well from the black back-
ground : the coat is purplish brown edged with fur with white puffs at
the shoulders; and a red cap contrasts well with his light-yellow hair.
This picture, a tempera painting on panel (15^ x n^4), was long
in the Collection of Baron Arthur de Schickler in Martinvast, Nor-
mandy, where it was attributed to Masaccio.
“There can be no question,” Berenson thinks, “that this portrait
is Botticelli’s own handiwork. The glamor it cast when I first saw it
frightened me into doubts that were dispelled directly I could study
the painting at my leisure. There is no one, using this formula and
technique, but Sandro himself who has the sinuous line, the inevitable
contours, the structural articulation, the firmness, convincingness, and