Portrait of a Man
Attributed to Joseph Van der Veken, Belgian, 1872 - 1964
Although this portrait has the general appearance of a Netherlandish painting of the early sixteenth century, recent art historical and technical research suggests that it was probably made by the modern Belgian conservator Joseph Van de Veken, who in the early twentieth century produced numerous paintings in imitation of early Netherlandish masters. Previously attributed to a sixteenth-century follower of Jan Mostaert (c. 1475-1555/56), the picture is stylistically very close to portraits known to be by Van der Veken, such as the Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I in the collection of Louise Dolphijn-Van der Veken, Genappe, Belgium (see Institut royal du Patrimoine artistique [IRPA], Brussels, photo library, cliché no. Y003228) and the Portrait of a Man formerly in the Fundación Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid, for which a preparatory drawing by Van der Veken is preserved in the collection of Louise Dolphijn-Van der Veken (see IRPA, photo library, cliché nos. B184598 and Y003266). The eyes and nose of the sitter in the Philadelphia portrait appear in nearly the exact same form in a portrait drawing by Van der Veken in the collection of Louise Dolphijn-Van der Veken (see IRPA, photo library, cliché no. Y003256). For both, the artist borrowed from and modified the facial features of an Italian Renaissance portrait that itself is indebted to early Netherlandish models: Pietro Perugino's (c. 1450-1523) Portrait of Francesco delle Opere in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (no. 1700).
RENAISSANCE. The renaissance one of the most interesting and disputed periods of European history. Many scholars see it as a unique time with characteristics all its own. A second group views the Renaissance as the first two to three centuries of a larger era in European history usually called early modern Europe, which began in the late fifteenth century and ended on the eve of the French Revolution (1789) or with the close of the Napoleonic era (1815). Some social historians reject the concept of the Renaissance altogether. Historians also argue over how much the Renaissance differed from the Middle ages and whether it was the beginning of the modern world, however defined.
The approach here is that the Renaissance began in Italy about 1350 and in the rest of Europe after 1450 and that it lasted until about 1620. It was a historical era with distinctive themes in learning, politics, literature, art, religion, social life, and music. The changes from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance were significant, but not as great as historians once thought. Renaissance developments influenced subsequent centuries, but not so much that the Renaissance as a whole can be called "modern."
Comments