Lot 170: JAN STEPHAN VAN CALCAR CLEVES CIRCA 1499 - 1546 NAPLES

oil on canvas

PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG BEARDED GENTLEMAN, THREE-QUARTER LENGTH STANDING, HOLDING A CARNATION IN ONE HAND AND THE HILT OF A SWORD IN THE OTHER

125.2 by 92 cm.; 49 1/4 by 36 1/4 in.

London, Royal Academy of Arts, Italian Art and Britain, 1960, no. 120 (as School of Moretto da Brescia).

A Catalogue of the Pictures, Works of Art etc., at Northwick Park, 1864 (2nd ed. 1908), no. 34 (as "Parmegiano, Portrait of Cosimo de' Medici");
T. Borenius, A catalogue of the collection of Pictures at Northwick Park, London 1921, p. 28, no. 53 (as "Moretto [School of?], Portrait of a Gentleman");
M. Ausserhoffer, Johann Stephan von Calcar: das porträt des Melchior von Brauweiler von 1540, Cleves 1992, reproduced p. 59, fig. 33 (as by Calcar).

With St. James's Gallery, Pall Mall (as by Pordenone, Portrait of Cosimo II de' Medici);
From whom acquired before 1864 by Lord Northwick, Northwick Park;
Thence by descent to Captain E.G.S. Churchill.

Prof. Rodolfo Pallucchini was the first to identify this as the work of Van Calcar, comparing it to the artist's signed and dated painting in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. no. 1536). Van Calcar spent most of his working life in Italy, travelling to Venice and throughout Emilia Romagna, before finally settling in Naples. This portrait reveals the influence of his Venetian contemporaries, in particular Paris Bordone and Titian (alongside whom he is known to have worked whilst in Venice), and it must therefore post-date the artist's sojourn in Venice, where he is recorded until 1536.

It has been suggested that the sitter is to be identified with the anatomist Andrea Vesalio (1514-1564), on the basis of a comparison with a woodcut of the latter, however this does not seem very convincing. Vesalio was King Charles V's physician and Van Calcar provided him with anatomical studies.