Attributed to Giovanni Battista Moroni

Lady Churchill (according to the Royal Academy exhibition catalogue of 1891);
Honorable W. Cornwallis West, M.P., Newlands Manor, Lymington, by 1891;
Mrs. F. Bishop;
Her sale, London, Robinson, Fisher & Harding, January 27, 1927, lot 57;
With van Diemen, Berlin / Amsterdam / New York, by 1929;
Viasmensky, New York;
By whom (anonymously) sold, New York, Parke Bernet Galleries, Inc., June 4, 1942, lot 59;
There purchased by Philip R. Adams.

London, Royal Academy, Exhibition of Old Masters, 1891, no. 115.

Possibly C. Ridolfi, Le Maraviglie dell'arte, Ovvero le Vite de gl'illustri Pittori Veneti e dello Stato, Venice 1648, p. 132 (ed. D.F. von Hadeln, 1914-1924, vol. I, p. 142);
Possibly M. Boschini, La Carta del navegar pitoresco, Venice 1660, p. 327 (ed. A. Pallucchini, 1966, p. 360, no. 23);
Possibly Serie degli uomini i più illustri nella pittura, scultura e architettura, con i loro elogi, e ritratti incisi in rame, Florence 1769-1775, vol. VII, 1773, p. 54;
Possibly F.M. Tassi, Vite de' Pittori Scultori e Architetti bergamaschi, Bergamo 1793, vol. I, p. 167 (ed. F. Mazzini, 1969-1970, vol. I, p. 167, vol. II, pp. 340, 341, 405);
Possibly Ch. Blanc, Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles. Ecole venitienne, Paris 1884, p. 4;
A. Graves, A Century of Loan Exhibitions 1813-1912, London 1913-1915, vol. II, 1913, p. 823;
E. Fornoni, Note biografiche su pittori bergamaschi, Bergamo, Curia vescovile, circa 1915-1922, c. 56;
V.E. Gasdia, Sant' Alessandro della Croce, ossia la Parrocchia dei Tasso in Bergamo, Bergamo 1924, p. 148;
G. Lendorff, Giovanni Battista Moroni, Der Porträt-maler von Bergamo, Winterthur 1933, pp. 42, 79, no. 76 (as by Moroni);
C. Caversazzi, "Due ritratti moroniani di Ercole Tasso Filodofo", in Bergomum, January-March 1936, X, no. 1, p. 46, reproduced;
C. Caversazzi, "Alcuni ritratti di G. B. Moroni all'estero", in Giambattista Moroni Pittore, Bergamo 1939, p. 40, reproduced p. 41;
D. Cugini, Moroni Pittore, Bergamo 1939, p. 317, reproduced plate 24;
G. Lendorff, Giovanni Battista Moroni, il ritrattista bergamasco, Bergamo 1939, pp. 100, 145, 165;
"Notizia sul Ritratto di Ercole Tasso", in Magazine of Art, vol. XXXV, October 1942, p. 230;
"Old Masters - Gallery VIII, lent by the Zanesville Art Institute", in Columbus Gallery of Arts, Monthly Bulletin, January 1943, vol. XIII, no. 4;
Art Institute, Zanesville, Ohio, Catalogue 1942, p. 23, no. 48 (as by Moroni);
W.E. Suida, "Aggiunte all'opera di Giovanni Battista Moroni", in Emporium, 1949, vol. CIX, p. 52;
B. Belotti, Storia di Bergamo e dei bergamaschi, Bergamo 1959, vol. III, p. 482, no. 94;
B. Fredericksen and F. Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Cambridge 1972, pp. 146, 518, 651 (as by Moroni);
Dizionario Enciclopedico Bolaffi dei pittori e degli incisori italiani, Torino 1972-1976, vol. VIII, 1975, p. 40;
E. Castelnuovo, "Il significato del ritratto pittorico nella società", in Storia d'Italia, Torino 1973, p. 1072;
M. Gregori, Giovan Battista Moroni, Bergamo 1979, pp. 314-315, no. 214, reproduced p. 364, fig. 5 (as by Moroni);
S. Facchinetti, in Giovan Battista Moroni, lo sguardo sulla realtà 1560-1579, exhibition catalogue, Bergamo 2004, p. 37, reproduced fig. 3 (as by Moroni);
A. Zanni and A. Di Lorenzo, in Giovanni Battista Moroni, Il Cavaliere in nero, L'immagine del gentiluomo nel Cinquecento, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2005, p. 85, reproduced fig. 1(as by Moroni).

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has been restored, probably in the last 50 years, yet it could look better if the frame and the painting were to be reexamined. The canvas has a nice stiff lining which although stabilizing the paint layer, creates rather a smooth surface. The hands, the book, the face and the ruff of the figure all seem to be in lovely state with very little loss or abrasion. The darker colors, which make up the remainder of the picture, are in less healthy condition and visible abrasion can be found, particularly in the upper background. Under ultraviolet light an old varnish seems to be present in the hat and in the clothing of the figure and it seems to have been cleaned in the remainder of the picture. There are restorations visible in a spot in the hat above the forehead, in a few other dots in the hat itself and in some isolated spots in the clothing. The restoration is uneven and it is unclear as to what the condition in the clothing and in the hat is exactly. Nonetheless there appears to be no reason not to get more involved in the restoration of this interesting picture.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Ercole Tasso (documented 1556- died 1613) was a native of Bergamo, where he as a councilor of the city and from 1577 its representative at Venice.  More important, however, was his work as a man of letters.  Tasso wrote a number of treatises of significance: Virginia overo della Dea de' nostri tempi (1593), Il Confortatore (1595), and Della realtà (1612).  He was also, like his more famous cousin Torquato Tasso, a poet.  This activity ranked Tasso amongst the leading literary figures of Lombardy of his day, and earned him a place in the Scena letteraria degli scrittori bergamaschi, a description of all of the important literary figures of the city, published by Donato Calvi in 1664. 

In fact, it is the book that the sitter is reading in this handsome portrait which provides a positive identification of Tasso as the sitter.  The title of the volume De Morte (or "Concerning Death") is noted by Claudio Ridolfi in his description of a portrait of Ercole Tasso which was in the house of Giovanni Grimani at Venice.¹  Ridolfi noted that the inscription was fuller than it appears in the present canvas, and provided the name of the sitter: "De Morte. Hercules Tassus Phillosophus annum agens 29."   Marco Boschini, in his lengthy, laudatory poem on Venetian painting (and in Venetian dialect) the Carta del Navegar pitoresco, mentions the painting and describes it more fully:

Un Tasso coi bragoni e 'l Bareton,
Sentà in cariega con un libro in man,
Fa stupir, fa incantar; l'è più che uman,
(El vogio dir) l'ha proprio del Zorzon²

A portrait of Ercole Tasso, from a series of portraits dating from the early 17th Century of various members of the family now conserved by the Biblioteca Civica, Bergamo, supports this identification, and is clearly the same sitter (see Belotti literature).

The difference in the inscription of the present painting and that mentioned in the Grimani collection makes a connection between the two uncertain, although as Gregori notes (see literature), such inscriptions of this type were not usual for Moroni, and that it is possible that the extra line identifying the sitter and his age was not autograph and was cleaned off at a later date.  She also notes another version of the composition "simile, ma solamente abbozzato di mano del Moroni... con le parole medesime di sopra citate," now location unknown.³ Certainly, by the time that the present canvas was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1891, the inscription appears to have been in its current state, as the painting was simply catalogued as "Man with a book". 

1  While the identity of the book which Tasso is reading is unclear—it may be for example a philosophical tract or a manuscript as is suggested by Gregori (see literature), there was an epic poem of exactly that title written in the first century BC by Lucius Varius Rufus, fragments of which still exist.

2   "A Tasso with pantaloons and a toque/ Seated in a chair with a book in hand;/ Is astounding, is enchanting, and more than human/........

3  "similar, but only done in a sketchy style, by Moroni.... with the words the same as the one cited above."