39 CARLO PORTELLI | PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN. BUST LENGTH, FACING LEFT, WITH A WHITE LACE COLLAR

Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's East, 8 November 1984, lot 127 (as Attributed to Pier Francesco di Jacopo Foschi);

There acquired.

Carlo Portelli trained under Ridolfo Ghirlandaio and worked as a draughtsman and painter in Florence. His style is closely linked to other Mannerist painters such as Pontormo, Bronzino and Francesco Salviati, the latter with whom he worked on decorations for the wedding of Cosimo de' Medici to Elenora de Toledo in 1539. The present portrait likely dates to the mid 1550s, and it compares stylistically to other known works by Portelli of that period, including his signed and dated Annunciation (1555) in the Church of Santa Maria Assunta in Arezzo [1] and a Portrait of a Woman in the Rijksmuseum [2].  When this portrait last appeared on the market, the possibility of this being a portrait of Ferdinando de Medici was suggested.  

We are grateful to Dr. Simone Giordani for proposing this attribution on the basis of photographs and for suggesting a date of circa 1555.

1. Oil on panel, 217 by 165 cm, See Carlo Portelli Pittore Eccentrico Fra Rosso Fiorentino E Vasari, exhibition catalogue, Florence 2015, pp. 182-183, cat. no. 35, reproduced.

2. Oil on panel, 114.4 by 78 cm, inv. no. SK-A-3009. Formerly attributed to Francesco Foschi, and more recently identified as a work of Portelli. See ibid., pp. 226-227, cat. no. IV, reproduced.