Portrait of a Gentleman (Michel de l’Hospital)

Giovan Battista Moroni (1520-1578)

In Roman numerals on the fragment of stone at the bottom right we see the date when Giovan Battista Moroni finished this portrait: 1554. It shows a gentleman, full-length, leaning on the plinth of a column, on which we see a Latin phrase taken from Horace: Impavidum ferient ruinae (“Ruins would strike him undismayed”). This motto has made it possible to make a hypothesis about the identity of the sitter: it might be Michel de l’Hospital, the representative of the King of France at the Tridentine Council (1547-1548), who did indeed use this phrase from Horace as his own personal motto, even though it was fairly common in sixteenth-century France. The painting is remarkable for its attention to detail, from the sitter’s garments through to the subtle play of shadows.

YOU MAY BE ALSO BE INTERESTED:

• IN THE SAME DATE
• SAME TYPE AND MATERIAL
• fur
• inscription
• Portrait
• Ritratto

• TITLE

  Portrait of a Gentleman (Michel de l’Hospital)

• AUTHOR

  Giovan Battista Moroni (1520-1578)

• INVENTARIO

  196

• DATE

  1554

• TYPE

  Painting

• TECNIQUE

  Oil on canvas

• DIMENSIONS

  185 × 115 cm

• SUBJECT

  Portrait

• SCUOLA PITTORICA

  16th century painting

• ROOM

  12