As early as 1927, an interoffice communication to Sir Joseph Duveen about this portrait revealed that William Addison Holder, an independent London conservator Duveen had contracted to clean this painting, found as he began to remove its varnish and overpainting that the work was in a “terrible state.” Holder was told to halt his work immediately and “put the picture back into the condition in which it was before…..” At that time the picture was attributed to Giorgione, but Bernard Berenson classified it in the same year as Giulio Campi, and then later identified it as a “Copy after a lost Titian.” The painting was carefully analyzed in 1965 at the New York University conservation lab, and in 1988 the restorer Mario Modestini performed a major intervention, reworking the larger loss near the proper right ear and restretching the canvas. At that point, a variety of attributions were posited, including not only early Titian, but also Bernardino Licinio (c. 1489–c. 1565), Giovanni Cariani (c. 1490–1547), and Lorenzo Lotto (c. 1480–1556).
Details
- Artist Name: Titian (Italian, c.1487/90-1576)
- Title: Portrait of a Man
- Date: 16th century
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 38 x 32 in. (96.5 x 81.3 cm)
- Credit Line: The Norton Simon Foundation
- Accession Number: F.1965.1.064.P
- Copyright: © The Norton Simon Foundation
Object Information
Robert H. (1850-1929) and Evelyn Holford Benson, sold 1 June 1927, as School of Giorgione, to;
[Duveen Brothers, New York, stock no. 29351, sold 1965 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
The Venetian School: Pictures by Titian and His Contemporaries
- Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1914 to 1915
Exhibition of Venetian Art
- London, New Gallery, 1894 to 1895
Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters and Deceased Masters of the British School
- London, Royal Academy, 1910-01-03 to 1910-03-12
Loan Exhibition of the Benson Collection of Old Italian Masters
- Manchester, City Art Gallery, 1927-04-27 to 1927-07-30
Lock, Stock and Barrel: Norton Simon's Purchase of Duveen Brothers Gallery
- Norton Simon Museum, 2014-10-24 to 2015-02-16
- Cook, Herbert F., Giorgione, pp. 74, 151
- von Beckerath, A., Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, p. 283
- Catalogue of Italian Pictures at 16, South Street, Park Lane, London and Buckhurst in Sussex Collected by Robert and Evelyn Benson,
- Berenson, Bernard, North Italian Painters of the Renaissance,
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. D53 p. 445
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