Portrait of a Young Man
Framed: 23 3/4 x 21 1/2 inches (60.33 x 54.61 cm)
National Exhibition of Works of Art, Leeds, 1868, no. 171.
Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters, Royal Academy of the Arts, Winter 1875, no. 171.
Pictures by Masters of the Milanese and Allied Schools of Lombardy, Burlington Fine Arts, Club, London, May-July 1898, no. 50.
Leonardo da Vinci, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 3-July 17, 1949, no. 40
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1951- 1952, no. 36.
In Leonardo’s Shadow: Drawings by His Followers, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, March 22—May 25, 1986, no. cat.
The Sforza Court: Milan in the Renaissance 1450—1535, Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, October 27—December 18, 1988; University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, January 18—March 12, 1989; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, April 16—June 4. 1989, no. cat.
Leonardo 1452-1519, Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy, April 15-July 19, 2015.
Prince Astorre Hercolani (1779-1828), Palazzo Hercolani, Strada Maggiore, Bologna, Italy, as by Francesco Francia, by 1828;
Hercolani heirs, 1828-May 7, 1836 [1];
Sir John Charles Robinson (1824-1913), London, as by Gian-Antonio Boltraffio, by 1863-1868 [2];
Purchased from Robinson by Sir Francis Cook, 1st Baronet (1817-1901), Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, England, 1868-1901;
By descent to his son, Sir Frederick Lucas Cook, 2nd Baronet (1844-1920), Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, England, as by Ambrogio de’ Predi, 1901-1920;
By descent to his son, Sir Herbert Frederick Cook, 3rd Baronet (1868-1939), Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, England, 1920-1939;
By descent to his son, Sir Francis Ferdinand Cook, 4th Baronet (1907-1978), Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, England, and Cothay Manor, Somerset, and the Trustees of the 1939 Picture Settlement Trust, 1939-July 8, 1947 [3];
Purchased from Cook and the Trustees by the dealer Gualtiero Volterra, London and Florence, probably for Count Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi (1878-1955), Rome and Florence, July 8, 1947-July 11, 1948 [4];
Purchased from Contini-Bonacossi by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York, July 11, 1948-1961;
Its gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1961.
NOTES:
[1] The Hercolani Archive is still privately owned by the family in Bologna, Italy. The painting then attributed to Francesco Francia is mentioned as part of the Hercolani Collection in an inventory published by B. Ghelfi, “Un nuovo inventario della Galleria Hercolani,” L’Archiginnasio. Bollettino della Biblioteca Comunale di Bologna 102 (2007): 405-469, no. 1966, Ritratto di Francia Giacomo fatto da sé in tavola (si dice di Francesco Francia). According to this inventory, the painting was sold by the Hercolani family on May 7, 1836.
[2] Sir John Charles Robinson was an art advisor and agent for Sir Francis Cook, and sold part of his private collection to Cook in 1868. In his Memoranda on Fifty Pictures (London: Privately printed by Whittingham and Wilkins, 1868), 8, Robinson indicates he acquired the painting in Bologna.
[3] According to John Somerville, Keeper of the Cook Collection Archive, in an email to MacKenzie Mallon, Specialist, Provenance, January 19, 2017, NAMA curatorial files, this painting was included in property placed in a trust created for the benefit of Sir Francis Ferdinand Cook after his father’s death in 1939. The Cook Collection Archive records the sale of the painting to Volterra on July 8, 1947.
[4] Gualtiero Volterra served as an agent for Contini-Bonacossi in London. He is known to have purchased other paintings from Cook and the Trustees in June-July 1947 on behalf of Contini-Bonacossi. Since this painting was sold by Contini-Bonacossi to the Kress Foundation the following year, it is probable Volterra purchased it from Cook on Contini-Bonacossi’s behalf.
Catalogue of Pictures by Italian, Spanish, Flemish…Masters, exh. cat. (London: British Institution, 1863), 9, as by Francesco Francia.
National Exhibition of Works of Art, exh. cat. (Leeds: Edward Baines and Sons, 1868), 14, as by Boltraffio.
J.C. Robinson, Memoranda on Fifty Pictures Selected from a Collections of Works of the Ancient Masters (London: Whittingham and Wilkins, 1868), 7-8, as by Boltraffio.
Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters and by Deceased Masters of the British School, exh. cat. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1875), 18, as by Boltraffio.
Catalogue of Pictures by Masters of the Milanese and Allied Schools of Lombardy, exh. cat. (London: Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1898), xlix, 14, as by Ambrogio de Predis.
Adolfo Venturi, “Corrieri Artistici dall’estero e dalle Regionio Italiane,” L’Arte 1 (1898), 317.
Gustav Pauli, “Ausstellung von Gemälden der Lombardischen Schule im Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, April-Juni 1898,” Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 10 (1898-1899): 108-09, (repro.).
Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures at Doughty House, Richmond: Belonging to Sir Frederick Cook, Bart., M.P., Visconde de Monserrate (London: [Metchim and Son], 1903), 29.
Woldemar von Seidlitz, “Ambrogio Preda und Leonardo da Vinci,” Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 26, no. 1 (1906/1907): 25, 25n2, 46, as possibly by Ambrogio de Predis.
Herbert Cook, Reviews and Appreciations of Some Old Italian Masters (London: Heinemann, 1912), 32-34, (repro.), as by Ambrogio de Predis.
Tancred Borenius, A Catalogue of the Paintings at Doughty House, Richmond, & Elsewhere in the Collection of Sir Frederick Cook, vol. 1, Italian Schools, ed. Herbert Cook (London: Heinemann, 1913), 122, (repro.), as by Ambrogio de Predis.
Wilhelm Suida, Leonardo und sein Kreis (Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1929), 113, 179, 286, (repro.), as by Francesco Napoletano.
Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A list of the principal artists and their works with an index of places (Oxford: Clarendon, 1932), 472, as by Ambrogio de’ Predis.
Maurice W. Brockwell, Catalogue of Pictures at Doughty House, Richmond Surrey: Collection of Sir Herbert Cook, Bart. (London: Heinemann, 1932), as by Francesco Napoletano.
Bernhard Berenson, Pitture Italiane del Rinascimento: Catologo dei Principali Artisti e Delle Loro Opere con un Indice dei Luogi, trans Emilio Cecchi (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1936), 406.
Wilhelm E. Suida and Wilhelm R. Valentiner, Leonardo da Vinci: Loan Exhibition, 1452-1519, exh. cat. (Los Angeles County Museum, 1949), 91, (repro.), as by the same hand responsible for “The Archinto Portrait” in the National Gallery, London.
Wilhelm E. Suida, Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection, Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 1945-1951 (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1951), 92-93, (repro.), as by Master of the Archinto Portrait.
William E. Suida, Catalogue of The Samuel H. Kress Collection of Italian Paintings and Sculptures: The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1952), 54-55, (repro.), as by a Milanese pupil of Leonardo.
Winifred Shields, “Great Italian Art Traditions Merge in Kress Collection,” Kansas City Star (October 26, 1952): 3E, (repro.), as by a Milanese pupil of Leonardo.
Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central Italian and North Italian Schools, vol. 1 (London: Phaidon, 1968), 108, as possibly by Ambrogio de Predis.
Fern Rusk Shapley, The Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century, vol. 2 (London: Phaidon, 1968), 135.
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 74, 524, 589.
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 86, (repro.).
Dizionario enciclopedico dei pittori e degli incisori italiani, vol. 5 (Milan: Mondadori, 1981), 126.
Adriano Peroni et al., Pavia: Pinacoteca Malaspina (Pavia: Commune di Pavia, 1981), 191.
Patricia Trutty-Coohill, Studies in the School of Leonardo da Vinci: Paintings in Public Collections in the United States with a Chronology of the Activity of Leonardo and his pupils and Catalogue of Auction Sales (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International, 1982), 170-72, 312.
David Alan Brown, “A Leonardesque ‘Madonna’ in Cleveland,” in Scritti di storia dell’arte in onore di Federico Zeri, ed. Mauro Natale, vol. 1 (Milan: Electa, 1984), 297.
Francesco Frangi, “Vincenzo Civerchio: Un libro e qualche novità in margine,” Arte Cristiana 75 (1987): 327n8.
Frederico Zeri, ed., La pittura in Italia: Il quattrocento, vol. 2 (Milan: Electa, 1987), 714.
Lorne Campbell, Renaissance Portraits: European Portrait-Painting in the 14th, 15th, and 16th Centuries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 256n15.
Maria Teresa Fiorio, “Lo Pseudo Francesco Napoletano,” Raccolta Vinciana 24 (1991): 90, 106n14.
Francesco Frangi, “Qualche considerazione su un Leonardesco eccentrico: Francesco Napoletano,” in I Leonardeschi a Milano: Fortuna e collezionismo. Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Milano 25-26 settembre 1990, eds. Maria Teresa Fioro and Pietro C Marani (Milan: Electa, 1991), 71, 78, 81, (repro.).
Giulio Bora, “The ‘Leonardeschi’ in Venice: between Anticlassicism and the ‘Maniera moderna’,” in Leonardo & Venice, exh. cat (Milan: Bompiani, 1992), 122n40.
Eliot W. Rowlands, The Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings 1300-1800, (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 125-129, (repro.).
Barbara Ghelfi, B “Un nuovo inventario della Galleria Hercolani,” L’Archiginnasio. Bollettino della Biblioteca Comunale di Bologna 102 (2007): 440, as by Francesco Francia.
