Attributed to Jan Jansz. Mostaert

Samuel Rogers, London;
His deceased sale, London, Christie's, 28 April – 20 May 1856, as Lucas van Leyden;
Hollingworth Magniac (1786-1867), London and Colworth Park, Bedfordshire;
His deceased sale, London, Christie's, 2 July 1892, lot 33 (as part of the Colworth Collection), as Lucas de Heere, for £105 to Mainwaring;
Massey-Mainwaring collection;
With Brown & Philips, London, 1907;
R.G. Behrens, London, circa 1925;
Oswald Magniac;
Thence by descent to Mrs. F.A. Magniac;
Her deceased sale, London, Christie's, 25 March 1949, lot 152, as 'Master of the Holzhausen Family', for £231 to Scharf;
With A.S. Drey, London, 1949;
Dr. Hans Wetzlar, Amsterdam, by 1952, as by Jan Mostaert;
Wetzlar sale, 1977, lot 110, as Jan Mostaert, when bought back.

Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Drie eeuwen portretkunst, 1952, as Lucas van Leyden;
Bolsward, Dienst voor Rijks Verspreide Kunstvoorwerpen exhibition, 1954;
Laren, 1968-9, no. 14, reproduced plate 5, as Jan Mostaert;
Amsterdam, P. de Boer, Nederland Water/Land, 1972, no. 23, as Jan Mostaert.

Wetzlar cat., 1952, pp. 5, 17, no. 68, reproduced, as Jan Mostaert;
M. Jager, "Een raadselachtige Mostaert", in Tableau, no. 3, 1981, pp. 612-3;
Voorkeuren, 1985, p. 56, reproduced p. 57.

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The oak panel is cradled and is in a good condition, apart from an unstable hairline crack to the top left with visible paint loss. The paint layer is raised and unstable, most particularly to the sitter's hat and coat. There is some visibly discoloured restoration in the sky by the spandrels and above the sitter's hat and one or two restored losses along the bottom edge. The delicate scumbles and glazes to the sitter's face have been slightly compromised but are mostly intact and his fine features are unaffected. The paint in the background, to the ledge, the momento mori and his left hand are in a good untouched condition and the details are well preserved. An opaque discoloured varnish covers the black sitter's tunic and beneath this a fine filigree of shrinkage cracks can be seen, some have been reduced. The surface is covered in a discoloured varnish and its removal would improve the tonality. Offered in a burr wood and gilt frame, with some losses."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Long attributed to Lucas van Leyden, and bearing his monogram on the ledge, this picture was identified as by Jan Mostaert (Haarlem circa 1474 - 1555/6) by Professor Max J. Friedländer, whose certifcate dated 1949 was offered with the picture in the Wetzlar sale in 1977.  Characteristic of Mostaert's portraits is the pose of the sitter turned partly away from the viewer, the ledge before him, and the distant landscape seen below and beyond him.

An alternative attribution to Jacob van Utrecht (?Utrecht c. 1480-?Lübeck after 1530) recorded at the RKD in The Hague also deserves serious consideration.  In particular the background, with vertiginous rocks to the left and a harbour city with ships and a distant sea to the right is very similar indeed in form and handling to van Utrecht's portrait of a bearded old man, signed and dated 1523, which was in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin until destroyed in 1945.

Whether by Mostaert or Van Utrecht, this portrait can be dated to the mid-1520s on grounds of style and the costume of the sitter.

This portrait makes its Vanitas meaning clear.  The sitter holds a depiction of a skull inscribed: Nil certius (nothing is certain); and on the parapet rests a sprig of Violet, which is an emblem of humility.