. Michel Sittow (Reval circa 1468 – 1525/6) Portrait of a man with a rosary Oil on panel, thinned, backed with a secondary panel, and cradled The Portrait of a Man with a Rosary is a typical and particularly fine example of portrait painting in the Low Countries in the first half of the sixteenth century. While slowly incorporating influences of contemporary Italian and German painting during the early decades of the sixteenth century, Flemish artists like Quentin Metsys, Joos van Cleve or Jan Gossaert simultaneously looked back at normative portrait conventions in the Netherlands that had ori
. Michel Sittow (Reval circa 1468 – 1525/6) Portrait of a man with a rosary Oil on panel, thinned, backed with a secondary panel, and cradled The Portrait of a Man with a Rosary is a typical and particularly fine example of portrait painting in the Low Countries in the first half of the sixteenth century. While slowly incorporating influences of contemporary Italian and German painting during the early decades of the sixteenth century, Flemish artists like Quentin Metsys, Joos van Cleve or Jan Gossaert simultaneously looked back at normative portrait conventions in the Netherlands that had originally been established by Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden in the 1430s. After the turn of the century, the neutral background of early portraiture once again became popular, even when, in previous decades, painters such as Petrus Christus, Dieric Bouts and Hans Memling had increasingly represented their clients in front of lavish interiors or idyllic landscapes. The revival of the monochrome background in Netherlandish portraiture in the years after 1500 coincided with an increased demand for portrait representations – of religious and secular character – that was no longer restricted to the aristocracy but also included the upper bourgeoisie in the Netherlandish cities. One of the earliest surviving examples made at the turn of the century is Gerard David’s Portrait of a Goldsmith (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) : Slightly smaller than the Portrait of a Man with a Rosary, David’s sitter casts a simple shadow on a plain monochrome background. Like David’s Vienna Goldsmith, the Portrait of a Man with a Rosary still adheres largely to the portrait conventions that were established by Van Eyck. It lacks the elaborate and refined cast shadows that are characteristic features of later portraits by Joos van Cleve and Jan Gossaert and therefore was most likely produced at the beginning of the evolution outlined above, at about 1520, rather than towards its end
Size: 1889px × 2645px
Photo credit: © The Picture Art Collection / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., /., 16th, century., michel, sittow
