Sandro Botticelli, 'Portrait of a Young Man', probably about 1480-5

Portrait of a Young Man

Sandro Botticelli

Not on display

About the work

Overview

This apparently simple portrait of a young man was revolutionary in Italian painting. Until this moment, artists painted people either in profile view, so only half their face was visible, or by turning them three-quarters to face the viewer.

Here, Botticelli paints the boy head on, mapping his whole face – the fleshy nose, dimpled cheeks, warm brown eyes and determined, protruding chin. Images of the whole face were usually reserved for so-called ‘portraits’ of Christ used for private prayer; showing a young man in such a way was radical.

The boy is dressed simply in brown, his dark blond curls escaping from beneath his red cap. His features are individual but his overall look resembles Botticelli’s idealised males, particularly Mars in his painting Venus and Mars, also in the National Gallery’s collection. Renaissance portraits often beautified their subjects because outward beauty was supposed to reflect inner virtue: the portrait was an eternal witness to the person’s soul as well as their appearance.

In-depth

This portrait of a young man was revolutionary when it was painted. The man’s dress – a plain brown doublet lined or edged with fur – is tied with cords at the neck; his red cap is similar to the one worn in Antonello da Messina’s Portrait of a Man. The two portraits also share plain dark backgrounds, and close and detailed observation of the features made possible by the strong lighting from the left. These elements are features of Northern European, specifically Netherlandish, portraiture. This was very fashionable in late fifteenth-century Florence, partly because members of the large Florentine community in the trading city of Bruges returned home with portraits of themselves made by northern painters, inspiring artists and patrons alike.

Before this trend for the northern style of portraiture emerged, Italian portraits were mostly in profile, showing only half the face. Painters like van Eyck, who worked in Bruges, were turning their subjects to face the viewer – a view we now take for granted – as you can see in Portrait of a Man (‘Léal Souvenir’) and Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?). Italian painters began to pick up on this as it offered a more direct communication with the viewer. Botticelli has gone one step further: he shows the boy head-on, his shoulders parallel with the picture’s horizontal edges.

Until this point the frontal view had been reserved for a particular kind of image of Christ. These were copies of the so-called Sudarium, the veil on which Christ wiped his face on the way to the Crucifixion and which had been miraculously imprinted with his face. The veil was thought to reveal Christ’s humanity and divinity – his physical and spiritual presence. As such, it became the new model for secular portraits that were intended not only to record, convey and preserve the sitter’s appearance but also to act as memorials for their souls after their death.

Both aspects of the man are portrayed in this portrait, through the detailed record of his features and the idealisation of his features. The young man looks like the handsome and athletic gods in some of Botticelli’s mythological paintings, particularly Mars in Venus and Mars (NG915), sharing his curly hair, strong bone structure and fleshy features. He has a rounded nose, dimpled cheeks and a prominent chin. Idealisation was an important aspect of Renaissance portraiture. Renaissance writers and thinkers were influenced by the ancient Greek ideas about appearance and its meaning. One philosopher, Marsilio Ficino, wrote in 1469 that internal perfection produces the external; in other words, outer beauty was a sign of inner virtue. As a lasting memorial to the sitter, Botticelli intended to show that this youth is both good and beautiful.

When this picture was first purchased by the National Gallery, it was thought to be a self portrait by the Florentine artist Masaccio, who was working in the decades before Botticelli, mainly on frescoes and large-scale altarpieces. This idea seems unusual now because we do not know of any portraits by Masaccio and because a self portrait by an artist in this period would have been highly unusual: artists did not generally begin to paint self portraits until the following century. The theory might have developed because the close-up view that focuses on the boy’s face is so direct and unassuming, or because he appears so at ease while being painted. The picture is now agreed to be by Botticelli, but the identity of the youth remains a mystery.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Portrait of a Young Man
Artist: Sandro Botticelli
Artist dates: about 1445 - 1510
Date made: probably about 1480-5
Medium and support: egg tempera and oil on wood
Dimensions: 37.5 × 28.3 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1859
Inventory number: NG626
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection
Previous owners: John Rushout, 2nd Baron Northwick
Frame: 16th-century Italian Frame

Provenance

On the back is written May 12 1804; i.e. the (Col. Matthew Smith) Sale, where lot 82, clearly identifiable with No. 626, was bought Northwick. On the back is also the seal of an owner, not at present identified; a crescent (?) on a fess dancetty between three roses, the crest a lion passant on a helmet. Recorded in Lord Northwick’s Collection in 1837. Exhibited at Manchester, 1857 (Provisional Catalogue, No. 38; Definitive Catalogue, No. 51). Northwick Catalogue, 1858 (No. 74). Purchased, Northwick Sale, 11 August, 1859 (lot 1127).

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Martin Davies, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools’, London 1986; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2008

Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian

The National Gallery (London)

15 October 2008 - 18 January 2009
2019

Young Bomberg and the Old Masters

The National Gallery (London)

27 November 2019 - 1 March 2020

Bibliography

1837

G.F. Waagen, Kunstwerke und Künstler in England und Paris, vol. 1, Berlin 1837
1846

'Visits to Private Galleries, XV: The Collection of the Right Hon. Lord Northwick, Thirlestane House, Cheltenham', Art Union, VIII, 1846
1854

G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being and Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. […], vol. 2, trans. E. Eastlake, London 1854
1858

Hours in Lord Northwick's Picture Galleries: Being a Catalogue with Critical and Descriptive Notices of Some of the Principal Paintings in the Thirlestaine House Collection, Cheltenham 1858
1859

Phillips, Catalogue of the Late Lord Northwick's Extensive and Magnificent Collection of Ancient and Modern Pictures…, Phillips, Thirlestane House, Cheltenham, 26 July 1859, Cheltenham, 26 July 1859 - 30 August 1859
1883

J.P. Richter, Italian Art in the National Gallery, London 1883
1893

H.C. Ulmann, Sandro Botticelli, Munich 1893
1903

J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in Italy, Umbria, Florence and Siena, from the Second to the Sixteenth Century, ed. R.L. Douglas, 2nd edn, 6 vols, London 1903
1908

H. Horne, Allessandro Filipepi, Commonly Called Sandro Botticelli, Painter of Florence, London 1908
1923

R. van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, 19 vols, The Hague 1923
1948

J. Alazard, The Florentine Portrait, London 1948
1951

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, London 1951
1958

R. Salvini, Tutta la pittura del Botticelli, Milan 1958
1960

M. Levey, 'Botticelli and Nineteenth Century England', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXIII/3-4, 1960, pp. 291-306
1961

M. Davies, The Earlier Italian Schools, 2nd edn, London 1961
1966

J. Pope-Hennessy, The Portrait in the Renaissance, New York 1966
1978

R. Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli, London 1978
1986

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, revised edn, London 1986
1987

B. Cole, Italian Art 1250-1550: The Relation of Renaissance Art to Life and Society, New York 1987
1987

R. Stapleford, 'Botticelli's Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Trecento Medallion', The Burlington Magazine, CXXIX/1012, 1987, pp. 428-36
1989

R. Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli: Life and Work, 2nd edn, London 1989
1990

L. Campbell, Renaissance Portraits: European Portrait-Painting in the 14th, 15th and 16th Centuries, New Haven 1990
1990

C. Caneva, Botticelli: Catalogo completo dei dipinti, Florence 1990
1991

J. Dunkerton et al., Giotto to Dürer: Early Renaissance Painting in the National Gallery, New Haven 1991
1991

D. Thiébaut, Botticelli, Paris 1991
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2002

O. Bradbury and N. Penny, 'The Picture Collecting of Lord Northwick: Part II' The Burlington Magazine, CXLIV/1195, October 2002, pp. 606-17
2004

S. Ungheri and V. Vettori, Sandro Botticelli, Milan 2004
2005

A. Cecchi, Botticelli, Milan 2005
2006

H. Körner, Botticelli, Cologne 2006
2008

L. Syson et al., Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 15 October 2008 - 16 January 2009), London 2008

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

Images

Insights

Associate Curator Laura Llewellyn discusses 'Portrait of a Young Man' by Sandro Botticelli, and explores how he revolutionised portraits.

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Venus and Mars

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Portraits like this – of idealised women, seen in profile – were popular in fifteenth-century Florence. This picture is not by Botticelli but by his workshop, which was one of many that produced them. The women usually have fair hair, pale skin and rosy lips, as this was thought to be the most be...

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The Virgin and Child

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The Virgin Mary sits in the corner of a simple room, the Christ Child on her lap. She holds him gently with both hands as he presses his cheek to hers and reaches for her breast. The gauzy shirt he wears contrasts with the layers of veils and garments covering his mother.Light streaming through t...

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The Virgin Mary stands with her infant son, Christ, in the corner of a large but sparsely decorated room. He is balanced on a small table, the only piece of furniture, but is dangerously close to its edge; a closed book further restricts the space available to him. The Virgin uses both hands to s...

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