Day 380 - Early portraiture

October 21, 2024

Gallery 602 focuses on  15th century portraiture.  It includes works by both Italian artists (among them, Filippo Lippi,  Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Lorenzo di Credi) and their Northern counterparts (with  paintings by Dierck Bouts and Hugo van der Goes and several works by Memling. Many of the canvases were cut from larger paintings, where they served as donor portraits in religious scenes, but they function very well outside their original religious context. Indeed, an image of Saint Justina of Padua looks like nothing other than an elegantly dressed and well-coiffed young woman. (I see that I was so taken with this saint's picture that I wrote about her in entry 231; the gallery is also the new home of the Roselli portrait discussed on Day 227.)  It's easy to relate to these works, many of which portray older men with stubbly beards and faces that suggest they've lived through a lot, or attractive young women, for whom the paintings served as marriage portraits.

The work that really catches my eye is not a painting but a bust, done in low relief by Mino da Fiesole in the third quarter of the 15th century. Its subject is the French cardinal Guillaume d'Estouteville, who, the caption tlls us, held papal aspirations. The image, which captures Guillaume's thin lips, strong nose, and far-seeing eyes, captures the man's intelligence and determination. Guillaumea may have been a man of the cloth, but he also appears to have been an expert practitioner of realpolitik.