Lot 128: Attributed to Ambrosius Benson (?Lombardy late 15th century-1550 Bruges)

Attributed to Ambrosius Benson (?Lombardy late 15th century-1550 Bruges)
Portrait of a gentleman, half-length, in a fur-trimmed black mantle and hat, his left hand on a wooden table with a carnation and papers
oil on panel
17¼ x 13 1/8 in. (43.8 x 33.3 cm.)

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.
Please note Payments and Collections will be unavailable on Monday 12th July 2010 due to a major update to the Client Accounting IT system. For further details please call +44 (0) 20 7839 9060 or e-mail info@christies.com
Ambrosius Benson was a south Netherlandish painter of Italian birth. In Italy he was known as Ambrogio Benzone, his Lombard origins are reflected in his being named after the patron saint of Milan, Saint Ambrose. Benson may have been attracted to Bruges by its commercial and artistic reputation, and he acquired citizenship there in 1518, being admitted to the guild of painters the following year. He is known to have worked in the studio of Gerard David, but evidently the two fell out, to the extent that the young painter brought a legal case against his Master. Benson's emerging style, heavily indebted to David, as well as to Adriaen Ysenbrandt, Rogier van der Weyden and Hugo van der Goes, proved a highly successful formula when combined with his early Lombard influences, and his fame grew steadily during his lifetime. He became a wealthy man, owning several houses, and numbering the city magistrates among his patrons. He held significant posts within the painters' guild, including dean in 1537-8 and again in 1543-4, and governor in 1540-1.

Despite these achievements, Benson's posthumous reputation was soon eclipsed and his works scattered. It was not until Friedländer made the connection between an altarpiece of St. Anthony of Padua (Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts), which is signed 'AB', and a number of works in Spain, that had been attributed to the anonymous 'Master of Segovia', that his oeuvre could be reconstructed. Not only did Friedländer establish that these were by the same hand, he also recognised the affinity with the work of Gerard David and searched the Bruges archives for the identity of the painter with the initials AB; the only possibility was Ambrosius Benson (see M.J. Friedländer, 'Ambrosius Benson als Bildnismaler', Jahrbuch der königlich preussischen Kunstsammlungen, XXXI, 1910, pp. 139-48). The fact that a sizeable amount of Benson's known oeuvre is to be found in Spain suggests that the artist had strong ties with that country, which benefited from Bruges' strong trading links and were no doubt also facilitated by his Latin origins.

We are grateful to Dr. Till-Holger Borchert for supporting the attribution on the basis of photographs, noting the typical handling of the highlights on the sitter's red doublet. The juxtaposition of the pink alongside folded letters on the sitters table suggests that this work may have been one of a pair of wedding or betrothal portraits, or a different ensemble painted to commemorate the sitter's friendship with another person. The manipulation of light, particularly as it effects the green background, is another characteristic associated with Benson portraits, while the drawing of the hands, with an emphasis on the distinct volumes of the individual fingers, is a recurrent stylistic element--for example, in the Portrait of a man in Paris, Musée des arts décoratifs. In unusually fine condition, the portrait is an important survival of early fifteenth-century portraiture at the crossroads of Netherlandish and Italian artistic currents.