Jan van der Straet, known as Giovanni Stradano
€ 25.000 / 35.000
Estimate
Jan van der Straet, known as Giovanni Stradano
(Bruges,1523 - 1605)
PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN (ALESSANDRO CAPPONI?)
oil on panel, 119x86.5 cm
RITRATTO DI GENTILUOMO (ALESSANDRO CAPPONI?)
olio su tavola, cm 119x86,5
Provenance
- Florence, Tommaso Stefanini Collection (according to the Literature).
Literature
- A. Baroni Vannucci, Giovanni Stradano pittore e disegnatore. Note e appunti sull'attività del fiammingo dal 1574 all'anno della morte 1606, in Giovanni Stradano e Dante, exhibition catalogue edited by C. Gizzi, Milan 1994, p. 80;
- A. Baroni Vannucci, Jan Van Der Straet detto Giovanni Stradano. Fladrus pictor et inventor, Rome 1997, p. 149.
Among the most significant portraits painted by Giovanni Stradano during his long stay in Florence, this panel depicts a distinguished gentleman seated at a writing desk, clad in an elegant dark zimarra trimmed with fur. In his right hand, the figure holds a letter.
The identification of the subject as Alessandro Capponi (1512–1587), a member of one of the most illustrious families of the Florentine aristocracy, is traditional but not definitively documented. The quality of his clothing, his composed demeanor, and the emphasis on attributes of culture and private administration, however, are well in keeping with the profile of the refined patrician described by contemporary sources.
The painting offers an interesting insight into the portraiture of Stradano, a Flemish artist trained in Antwerp and active in Florence from the mid-1550s, where he became a permanent member of Giorgio Vasari’s circle and the Medici court. Although renowned above all as the creator of large decorative cycles and an extraordinary draftsman, Stradano was able to infuse his portraits with his Northern European sensibility - evident in the meticulous rendering of surfaces, fabrics, and skin tones - blending it with the monumental language and compositional balance of the Tuscan-Roman tradition. The result is an image of intense psychological presence, in which the restraint of the pose is offset by the richness of texture and the refined play of light.
The work is well-documented in the scholarly literature thanks to the seminal studies by Alessandra Baroni Vannucci, who first published it in the exhibition catalog Giovanni Stradano and Dante (1994) and subsequently in the monograph Jan Van Der Straet, known as Giovanni Stradano. Flandrus pictor et inventor (1997), consistently attributing it to the artist’s portraiture and identifying its provenance as the Florentine collection of Tommaso Stefanini.