Portrait of a Man by Antonello da Messina

Description:

Portrait of a Man by Antonello da Messina, oil on canvas dated 1465. An absolute masterpiece, the portrait is mentioned for the first time in 1860 in a letter of Cavalcaselle written from Termini Imerese to the owner, the Baron Enrico Pirajno of Madralisca as the only work of Antonello seen by the scholar in western Sicily. According to tradition, it came from Lipari, the native land of the baron’s wife, and it was for a long time mounted as a cabinet door for a pharmacy. The baron bought it in 1859 and brought it from Cefalù to Lipari.

The suggestive title by which the table is known, “the portrait of the unknown sailor” appears for the first time in the Anderson catalogue but Roberto Longhi was sure that the portrayed man was not a sailor who could hardly afford, economically and socially, to have his portrait painted, but a baron. Critics now widely agree in considering the painting one of the earliest portraits of the artist, even though there is no agreement yet on the exact date. A scar on the eye and the mouth needed a first restoration in Florence in the late 19^th century. A second was made by the Central Institute for Restoration in Rome in 1953 and a third again in Rome in 1980-81 by the same institute.