Portrait of a Musician

The Portrait of a musician, even portrait of a young man, is a painting of the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) or his school is attributed. The dated to 1485-1490 factory is located in the collection of the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan.

It is Leonardo's only remaining Portrait of a man, even if found in his notebooks and sketchbooks numerous well-known portrait drawings of this kind, such as the so-called " self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci".

The work

The portrait is executed in oil and tempera on wood. It shows the head of a young man in the quarter profile; the face is rotated slightly from the frontal view. In his right hand he holds a document with a score.

The painting is sometimes referred to as unfinished. Compared to the detail worked out face of the person shown, the red beret, the clothes and the hair appear only fleetingly performed. It is assumed in the supine version of the peripheral areas may an artistic intention Leonardo or even the participation of another painter.

Some art historians to take a stake of Leonardo 's pupil Ambrogio de Predis ( about 1455 - after 1508) to, assume, however, that the face of Leonardo carefully executed originates. It is possible that hand and document were later added to the original work.

History

The portrait came probably by Count Galeazzo Arconati the stock Ambrosian Library. In 1637 Arconati the Ambrosiana donated his extensive collection of works by Leonardo da Vinci, including manuscripts and notebooks, such as the so-called Paris Manuscripts and the Codex Atlanticus.

In the documents of the Ambrosiana, the painting appears for the first time in 1671. A catalog of the Pinacoteca dating back to 1686, the plant will run as a "Portrait of Duke of Milan ". When they cleaned the painting in 1905, the score was visible in the right hand of the man pictured. Therefore, the present name.

The person shown

The identity of the represented person is unclear. In the 19th century interpreted at the picture as a portrait of Ludovico Sforza ( 1452-1508 ), the Duke of Milan and patron of Leonardo da Vinci in Milan its first period from 1482 to 1499.

It is now believed that the portrait represents the composer Francisco Gaffurio (1451-1522), who worked as a conductor at the Cathedral of Milan from 1484. He is the author of numerous music theory works, including published in 1492 " Theorica musice " in which he portrays the legend of " Pythagoras in the smithy ," the alleged discovery of the mathematical basis of musical harmony.