Portrait of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, oil on panel, 60.5 x 48.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Formerly Benini collection, Venice;
European private collection

Literature:
Pittura Veneta. Prima mostra d’arte antica delle raccolte private veneziane, exhibition catalogue edited by A. Riccoboni, Venice 1947, pp. 10, 22, no. 16, pl. 15),
C. Gilbert, Bartolommeo Veneto and His Portrait of a Lady, in: Bulletin of the National Gallery of Canada, 1973, 22, p. 14, no. 14
L. Pagnotta, Bartolomeo Veneto, l’opera completa, Florence 1997, cat. no 13, fig. 51.

Exhibited:
Venice, Pittura Veneta. Prima mostra d’arte antica delle raccolte private veneziane, 1947, no. 16

The present portrait depicts Cardinal Ippolito d’Este (1479–1520), as is indicated by his coat of arms painted on the reverse of the panel. Ippolito was the son of Duke Ercole I d’Este and Eleonore of Aragon and was made a cardinal at the age of fourteen by Pope Alexander VI Borgia. He was one of the richest members of the Curia and he became increasingly influential after the marriage of his brother Alfonso to Lucretia Borgia, Alexander VI’s daughter. Ippolito was also a famous patron of the arts.

Pagnotta compares the present painting to the Portrait of a Lady (formerly M. de Rothschild Collection) and to the Portrait of a Gentleman (formerly Stuyvesant Collection, New York). The portrait is characterized by a similar sharp modeling of form and polished surface. The pale complexion of the sitter is also comparable to that of the Portrait of Beatrice II d’Este by Bartolomeo Veneto (South Bend). Pagnotta dates the painting to circa 1510, not only for stylistic reasons, but in regard to the apparent age of the sitter as well. It appears he is depicted in his thirties.

Another version of the portrait (oil on panel, 59 x 47 cm; formerly New York, Otto H. Kahn Collection, sale, Christie’s, 16 April 1986, no. 150), without the coat of arms of the cardinal, was attributed to Lorenzo Lotto by Berenson in 1932 (see B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places, Oxford 1932, p. 310, and B. Berenson, Lotto, Milan 1955, pp. 48-49, fig. 63). Pagnotta suggests that the work given to Lotto could be an autograph copy of the present painting (see Pagnotta, op. cit., p. 184, n. 13).

Bartolomeo Veneto worked in Venice, the Veneto and Lombardy and was also painter at the Este court in Ferrara (1505–1508). He became a fashionable portraitist following the tradition of the Lombard School of Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea Solario. The subtle play of light across the sitter’s face in the present painting and the attention to the psychological aspects are typical of his oeuvre.