Portrait of a Youth
Filippino Lippi·c. 1485
Historical Context
Filippino Lippi's Portrait of a Youth from around 1485 is one of the finest Florentine portraits of the late Quattrocento, demonstrating his skill in the genre alongside his primary identity as a religious and narrative painter. The youth is shown in three-quarter profile against a plain background — the standard Florentine portrait format of the period — with an individualized face that suggests specific observation rather than type. Filippino's portraits are rare compared to his religious commissions but show the same quality of psychological observation that characterized his best narrative work. The unknown youth's direct gaze and slightly melancholic expression give the portrait a quality of personal presence unusual in the period's relatively formulaic approach to portraiture.
Technical Analysis
The combined oil and tempera technique on panel creates luminous flesh tones and subtle chiaroscuro, with Filippino's refined draftsmanship evident in the precise contours and the sensitive rendering of the sitter's features.
Provenance
(Stefano Bardini [1836-1922], Florence), in the later 1880s; purchased 1890 by Prince Johann II von Liechtenstein [1840-1929], Vienna;[1] by descent to Prince Franz I von Liechtenstein [1853-1938], Vienna; (M. Knoedler & Co., New York and London), c. 1920; Mr. and Mrs. Frank D. Stout, Chicago, by 1924;[2] consigned November 1930 by Mrs. Stout to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York and London);[3] sold November 1930 to Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.; deeded 30 March 1932 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[4] gift 1937 to NGA. [1] According to Fiorenza Scalia and Cristina De Benedictis, _Il Museo Bardini a Firenze_, Milan, 1984: 121, the painting is registered under the year 1890, when, after having been sold by Stefano Bardini to Prince Johann II of Liechtenstein, it was presented to the export office of the Soprintendenza delle Belle Arti in Florence. Although the two authors erroneously report its location as the Johnson Collection in Philadelphia, there seems to be no doubt that the reference is to the NGA painting. [2] Fern Rusk Shapley, _Catalogue of the Italian Paintings_, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:258, gives c. 1925 as the date of the painting's passage from the Liechtenstein collection into that of Frank D. Stout; however, already in 1921 Wilhelm von Bode (_Sandro Botticelli_, Berlin, 1921: 106) reports the work as having been purchased by an American collector, and in 1924 the painting was exhibited in Chicago as part of the Stout Collection. See _Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago_, 18, no. 6 (September 1924): 76 (repro.); 18, no. 7 (October 1924): 90. [3] According to the Knoedler stock books, the painting was consigned by Mrs. Stout as Knoedler's number CA 267 (Getty Provenance Index). [4] Mellon purchase date and date deeded to Mellon Trust are according to Mellon collection files in NGA curatorial records and David Finley's notebook (donated to the National Gallery of Art in 1977, now in the Gallery Archives).
