Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel
ArtistSandro Botticelli
Yearc. 1480
MediumTempera on poplar wood
MovementItalian Renaissance
OwnerPrivate

The Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel (also known as Portrait of a Young Man holding a Trecento Medallion[1]) is a painting attributed to Sandro Botticelli. Due to its style it has been estimated to have been painted around 1480.[2] The identity of the portrait's subject is unknown, but analysts suggest it could be someone from the Medici family, as Lorenzo de' Medici was one of Botticelli's main benefactors.[3]

Description of the painting

The painting, thought to have been completed c. 1480, is believed to represent the beauty ideals[4] of Renaissance Florentine high society.[5] The young man's tunic is of a simple, fine quality with a blue color very rare at the time.[6] The work was painted in tempera on poplar wood[7] with a width of 38.9  cm and a height of 58.7  cm.[1] The figure of the bearded saint in the trecento medallion[8] was added after the portrait was completed and is believed to be an original by Bartolomeo Bulgarini, also known as the "Ovile Master".[8] The medallion is very similar to other works by Bulgarini[9] with a presumption that it was originally trimmed from a rectangular trecento.[10] The young man is portrayed in front of a window frame in which the artist has fashioned a series of color planes.[8] The inner frame is a uniform grey color, and appears to have a bright blueish tone to the left with a darker grey one in the right so the colors seem to change from left to right.[8] One of the young man's fingers, supporting the medallion from below, rests on a bright grey strip at the bottom of the painting. The hand acts as a repoussoir that provides the illusion that the medallion is in another level within the painting.[8]

History and ownership

The first modern record of the painting was in 1938, when it was owned by Baron Newborough of Caernarvon.[1] At the time, the art dealer Frank Sabin[2] visited the Newborough estate and appraised the painting's value.[1] Lord Newborough was ignorant of the true value of the painting, so Sabin managed to buy the piece for a relatively low price.[1] Art historians assumed that the painting came into the possession of the Newborough family when the 1st Baron Newborough, Thomas Winn, lived in Florence, Italy between 1782 and 1791.[2][1]

Sabin sold the portrait to the collector Sir Thomas Merton in 1941 for a five-figure sum.[2] During Merton's ownership the portrait was first described as a work by Botticelli.[1] The attribution to Botticelli was doubted later, as prominent monographs on Botticelli did not include the portrait as one of his.[9] Currently a majority of the art historians accept the attribution to Botticelli.[2] While the Merton family owned the portrait, it became the subject of a poster for a Royal Academy of Arts Exhibition of Italian Art in 1960.[11] In 1982, Merton's descendants sold the painting for £ 810,000 at an auction at Christie's.[2]

After Sheldon Solow bought the piece in 1982,[12][2] the portrait was loaned to major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery in London, and the Städel Museum in Frankfurt,[3] where it was displayed in a Botticelli exhibition in 2009–2010.[2] In January 2021, the portrait was sold at an auction at Sotheby's New York for more than US$92.2 million[13] to a Russian-speaking collector.[14] The price for the painting was the highest paid for a Botticelli and the highest for an Old Master work since Leonardo Da Vinci's Salvator Mundi sold in 2017.[15]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Stapleford, Richard (1987). "Botticelli's Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Trecento Medallion". The Burlington Magazine. 129 (1012): 428–436. ISSN 0007-6287. JSTOR 882920.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Thomas, Gina. "Mehr als 80 Millionen Dollar: Dieser Jüngling kann teuer werden". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  3. ^ a b Brown, Mark (2020-09-24). "'True beauty for the ages': $80m Botticelli to appear at auction". The Guardian. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  4. ^ McGreevy, Nora. "One of the Last Privately Owned Botticelli Portraits Could Fetch $80 Million". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2020-12-19.
  5. ^ "Rare Botticelli portrait could reach $100 million at auction". Reuters. 2020-09-25. Retrieved 2020-12-19.
  6. ^ Garabedian, Maya. "Sandro Botticelli: A Closer Look at Young Man Holding a Roundel". Mutualart.com. Retrieved 2020-12-19.
  7. ^ Gropp, Rose-Maria. "Altmeister-Markt: Der Preis ist heiß". FAZ.NET (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  8. ^ a b c d e Stapleford, Richard (1987), p.428
  9. ^ a b Stapleford, Richard (1987), p.432
  10. ^ Stapleford, Richard (1987), p.430
  11. ^ Hartley, H.; Gabor, D. (1970). "Thomas Ralph Merton. 1888-1969". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 16: 434. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1970.0017.
  12. ^ Kazakina, Katya (2020-09-24). "NYC Property Billionaire Selling Botticelli for $80 Million". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2020-10-27.
  13. ^ "Botticelli portrait sells for record $92.1m at Sotheby's in New York". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved 2021-01-28.
  14. ^ Crow, Kelly (28 January 2021). "Botticelli's 'Young Man' Portrait Sells for $92.2 Million". Wsj.com. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
  15. ^ Kazakina, Katya (2021-01-28). "A Botticelli Portrait Sells for $92 Million at Sotheby's Auction". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-02-17.
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