Year 1448–1494 Artist Domenico Ghirlandaio | Medium Tempera on wood | |
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Dimensions 44.5 cm × 54.6 cm (17.5 in × 21.5 in) Location Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York City Owner Metropolitan Museum of Art Domenico Ghirlandaio artwork An Old Man and His Gran, Portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni, Visitation, Announcement of Death to St Fina | ||
Portrait of a Man is a painting from c. 1448–1494 made by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449 – 1494) executed in tempera on wood.
Painting
Domenico Ghirlandaio was an Italian Renaissance painter who was active in Florence. He was a representative of the Florentine Renaissance, along with Verrocchio, the Pollaiolo brothers and Sandro Botticelli.
The painting is an early work of the painter, most probably painted at the same time when he painted the frescos in at the church of San Gimignano. Ghirlandaio was noted for capturing the facial expression of his sitters in a remarkable way, rendering them an animated expression. The painting was cleaned and renovated recently. The identity of the man depicted in the painting is unknown, possibly Marsilio Ficino. In 15th-century in Italy, the individual portrait painting has re-emerged to spark a new vigor after a period of thousand years of silence. The last period in the history was in the antiquity, when the Romans were known for their prolific depiction of individual traits of peoples. After the Romans this was mostly reserved for rulers and notable members of the aristocracy and historic figures. The new kind of depictions from the Renaissance were based on the emerging sense of individuality, the visual sense of self-understanding; a new kind of self-presentation that in our modern era is taken for granted.