Dosso Dossi
(Italian, born c. 1486-1542)
Portrait of a Man in a Black Beretta
oil on cradled panel
25 3/8 x 19 3/8 in. (64.5 x 49.2 cm)
This lot is located in Philadelphia.

Provenance:

Mauro Lucco previously assisted in the cataloguing of this lot.

Provenance:
Private Collection, France, by 1956.
Jean Neger, Paris.
Private Collection, since before 1968.

Literature:
Roberto. Longhi, “Officina Ferrarese,” Opere Complete, V, 1956, p. 190.
Amalia Mezzetti, Il Dosso e Battista ferrarese, 1965, pp. 56; 106-107, no. 141.
Felton Gibbons, Dosso and Battista Dossi: Court Painters at Ferrara, Princeton, 1968, p. 188, no. 41, fig. 64, illustrated (as dated to the mid-1520s).
Alessandro Ballarin, “Giovanni de Lutero, di Dosso Dossi,” Le siècle de Titien. L’âge d’or de la peinture a Venise, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1993, p. 469.
Alessandro Ballarin, Dosso Dossi: La pittura a Ferrara negli anni del Ducato di Alfonso I, Padua, 1994, vol. I, p. 342, no. 439; vol II, fig. 708, illustrated.
Peter Humfrey and Marco Lucco, Dosso Dossi: Court Painter in Renaissance Ferrara, New York, 1998, pp. 230;, 243-245, no. 48, illustrated (as Dosso Dossi?).

Lot Note:
The present portrait is by Dosso Dossi, a Ferrarese artist best known for his paintings of religious and mythological subjects. The work dates to the mid-1520s and is an austere portrayal of a man who wears a black beretta and is a rare example of a painting of this genre by the artist. Only a few instances by the artist are recorded, including members of the Este family and the daughters of Isabella of Aragon. Since its initial publication by Longhi in 1956, the portrait has been consistently attributed to Dossi by art historians. Mauro Lucco regards the present picture, along with the Portrait of a Man in the Louvre, as central to the understanding of Dossi's somewhat enigmatic portrait oeuvre. 

Although an old label on the reverse of the painting attributes the painting to Dossi, its identification as a “supposed portrait of Christopher Columbus,” is unlikely. Instead, given the artist’s patronage by Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, the sitter was most likely a member of the Ferrarese court.

Framed: 37 x 30 1/2 x 3 in.

Please contact Fineart@freemansauction.com for a detailed condition report.