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CATALOGUE ENTRY

Portrait of a Young Man

1430s–1450s
Attributed to Paolo Uccello
Italian, 1397–1475
tempera and/or oil on wood panel
Diameter of hexadecagon: approximately 22-1/4 in. (57 cm)
The Clowes Collection
2014.87
SEE TECHNICAL EXAMINATION REPORT

Marks, Inscriptions, and Distinguishing Features

None

Entry

This curious Portrait of a Young Man features the bust-length profile of an unidentified sitter.1 The painted surface is highly abraded, yet strong, fluid contours and adept modeling convey volume and remarkable plasticity. The conventional profile format—inspired by Greco-Roman coins and medals—remerged under the influence of Renaissance humanism.2 Credited with reviving this pictorial tradition is the polymath Leon Battista Alberti (1404­–1472) with his independent, bronze self-portrait of 1435 (Washington, DC, National Gallery).3 Scholarship dates the Portrait of a Young Man as early as the 1430s, placing it at the forefront of the genre.4

This painting is attributed to the Florentine artist Paolo Uccello (born Paolo di Dono, 1397–1475).5 Among his contemporaries, Cristoforo Landino (­1424­–1498) reported that the artist was a “good composer and varied,” and the biographer Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) wrote that Uccello’s paintings were to be found throughout Florence.6 Yet relatively few of his works survive, and precious little is known about his formative training. Documents dated 1407 record him as a garzone (junior assistant) within the workshop of the painter and sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378–1455).7 His was a large and influential studio famed for producing two sets of bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery, including the acclaimed Gates of Paradise (1425–1452). Some the greatest sculptors, painters, and architects to emerge in Florence in this period were assistants in Ghiberti’s workshop, including Donatello, Michelozzo, and Benozzo Gozzoli. This exciting environment undoubtedly set the stage for Uccello’s pioneering work on visual perspective illustrated in the three panels featuring scenes of The Battle of San Romano, 1430s­–1440s (London, National Gallery; Paris, Louvre Museum; and Florence, Uffizi Gallery).8

According to his contemporaries, Uccello was a skilled and prolific artist, yet evidence of his work as a portraitist is rare. Among his documented paintings is the Equestrian Monument to Sir John Hawkwood of 1436 (Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore).9 Other types are the crypto-portraits in the aforementioned San Romano scenes and conceivably those more distinguished figures in the Stories of Noah from the mid-to-late 1440s (Florence, Chiostro Verde in Santa Maria Novella).10 With regards to the Clowes portrait, there are notable similarities with figures attributed to Uccello painted in the Marcovaldi Chapel in Prato Cathedral—in particular, that of a male in the Presentation of the Virgin, 1435–1436.11 (fig. 1) The long neck, rounded jaw, cropped hair layered in waves, and the use of light to model the face convey an idealized youth who is very much like that of the Clowes sitter. The Prato figure is part of a group that loosely quotes a passage from Masaccio’s Raising the Son of Theophilus and St. Peter Enthroned of 1427 (Florence, Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine).12 Uccello was intimately familiar with Masaccio’s work based upon an earlier collaboration with the artist at the Carnesecchi Chapel in Florence, which also included the painter Masolino on an altarpiece dated around 1423.13

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Figure 1: Attributed to Paolo Uccello (Italian, 1397–1475), Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple (detail), 1435–1436, fresco, Marcovaldi Chapel, Prato Cathedral, Duomo, Prato, Italy. Photo credit: Scala / Art Resource, NY.

Unlike the figure in the Prato cycle, which is secondary to the narrative, the Clowes painting is an independent portrait. Scholars have addressed similarly composed examples, including the Portrait of Matteo Olivieri, about 1430s (Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art), the Portrait of Michele Olivieri, about 1450 (Norfolk, VA, Chrysler Museum), and the Profile a Young Man of about 1440–1442 (fig. 2).14 The comparatively hard physiognomy displayed among these figures is in marked contrast to the sinuous quality of the Clowes sitter’s profile, a trait that is also seen among Uccello’s figures in The Hunt in the Forest of about 1465–1470 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) and A Young Lady of Fashion of the 1460s (fig. 3).15 Furthermore, Early Renaissance portraits are hampered by a lack of documentation and plagued by shifting attributions. For example, the Chambéry painting was once associated with Uccello, but is now thought to be by Domenico Veneziano (about 1400–1461), whereas the Boston portrait was purchased as a Domenico and is now attributed to Uccello.16 Significantly, the Boston and Clowes panels are distinguished as the only known independent, panel portraits currently given to the artist.

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Figure 2: Domenico Veneziano (1400–1461), Profile a Young Man, about 1440–1442, tempera on wood, 18-5/16 × 14-3/8 in. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Chambéry, France, M930. Photo: Thierry Ollivier. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY
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Figure 3: Attributed to Paolo Uccello (Italian, 1397–1475), A Young Lady of Fashion, 1462–1465, oil on panel, 17-3/8 x 12-1/2 x 1-1/4 in.). Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, P27W58. Photo credit: HIP / Art Resource, NY.

Recorded provenance for the Clowes painting is limited. Dr. George H.A. Clowes purchased it in 1942 from the E. and A. Silbermann Galleries in New York as the expertly appraised work of Uccello.17 Among its advocates were Lionello Venturi, Hans Tietze, and William Suida.18 Despite their assertions, this painting failed to garner further support and lapsed into obscurity. Matters were not helped when, in 1965, the painting was sent to Harvard’s Fogg Museum for analysis, whereupon paint tested for solubility at the object’s edge was found to dissolve readily in acetone.19 As a result of this restricted sampling area, it was presumed that the overall work was modern.

Decades later, in 1980, Carlo Volpe championed this virtually ignored portrait. Acknowledging its condition and unusual format, he placed it around the 1430s and praised its luminous quality: “But what a hallmark of formal perfection, what happy complicity of the eye and the compass; and that subtle, solitary dialogue, between the full form turned in space and the cut of the profile."20 This renewed interest garnered substantial attention among scholars who dated the painting between the 1430s and 1450s.21

In 2002, the Clowes painting received international exposure in the Italian exhibition Masaccio e le origini del Rinascimento.22 This was only the second recorded exhibition of the portrait, and a considerable departure from its regional debut 40 years earlier in Bloomington, Indiana. Miklós Boskovits pursued the loan arguing that the work “has not received the attention of scholars it would certainly merit. To allow specialists of Renaissance painting to study the original…would in all probability help the critical re-evaluation of the Indianapolis portrait; in our opinion, indeed, this picture illustrates very well the cultural climate of Florence at about 1430."23 The exhibition marked the 600th anniversary of Masaccio’s birth and featured numerous works by Donatello, Masolino, Fra Angelico, and Filippo Lippi, among other leading quattrocento artists. Within this authoritative context, the Clowes Portrait of a Young Man was unequivocally displayed as the work of Paolo Uccello. Moreover, it was distinguished as the only portrait in the exhibition. But its reception was not without skepticism. In a review, the art historian Angelo Tartuferi was struck by the Clowes painting, writing that it “in some aspects 'compels' the perception of incredible modernity, such as not to completely exorcise suspicions of inauthenticity that has always accompanied it in a more or less veiled manner."24 This cautious assessment was not unfair considering what little was known about the painting.

Technical analysis has since revealed the painting’s hidden complexities. X-radiography shows the portrait is an inset panel measuring approximately 52.6 × 46.4 cm (fig. 4). 25 The edges of this inset are rounded along the top and bottom with the left and right sides squared. The wood of the surrounding polygonal framework is not consistent with the central inset panel, which bears signs of woodworm tunneling (inactive). This evidence suggests the portrait—whether originally conceived as a rectilinear or tondo portrait—was, for some reason, later modified to a 16-sided polygonal format. 26 Additionally, the painting is fitted with a cradle. When and why these changes occurred is not clearly documented (see below), and examination for purposes of wood identification and dendrochronology is not currently possible.

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Figure 4: X-ray image of Paolo Uccello’s Portrait of a Young Man, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, The Clowes Collection, 2014.87.

In tracing this object’s provenance, the earliest reference dates to the 1941 expertise authored by Venturi who notes: “Some years ago I saw in Paris the portrait of a young man in a polygonal form, of sixteen sides.… Your painting was in the Émile Gavet [1830–1904] Collection, Paris, about fifty years ago."27 This claim is supported by the presence of several Paris customs stamps affixed to the cradling of the back along with the penciled notation “Calve Collection” (a phonetic spelling of Gavet?) (see “Distinguishing Marks” section of the Technical Examination Report; also fig. 5). Boskovits linked the painting to that of a fifteenth-century Umbrian portrait in Gavet’s auction catalog of 1897.28 Among the paintings listed, there is only one by an Umbrian:

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Figure 5: IRR of cradle with handwritten notations. Paolo Uccello’s Portrait of a Young Man, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, The Clowes Collection, 2014.87.

“Portrait of a Man, Umbrian School, end of the 15th century. The figure, a beardless young man, whose face is framed by long, curly hair wearing a cap with a narrow brim, is seen in half-length. Dressed in a dark green doublet with a small gold-embroidered collar and light green sleeves, he turns his head to the right and tilts it back, the mouth in an ecstatic attitude. Dark green background. Oak panel, Diam. 47 [cm]."29

The visual description does not strongly correspond to the Clowes painting as we know it, but the measurements and technical analysis hint at correlations (see below). Furthermore, on provenance, twice written on the cradle is the name of Prince Tasziló II Festetics de Tolna (1850–1933) of Budapest, a Hungarian royal married to the British noble Lady Mary Victoria Douglas-Hamilton (1850–1922).30 If once owned by the Festetics family, supporting evidence to this effect has not come to light.31

Archival images identify three distinct aesthetic and physical stages in the painting’s history. Probably the earliest of these is an undated, duplicate pair of black-and-white gelatin prints housed in the National Gallery of Art Library in Washington, DC.32 While the image is dark it is possible to discern the rounded top and bottom edges of the insert panel. The figure’s profile displays heavy shading around the eye, nose, and jawline (fig. 6). Importantly, the image shows no evidence of the surrounding polygonal format. The back of both photos bears the Duveen Brothers gallery stamp and the written measurements “57 × 47 cm”, the approximate dimensions of the inset panel as well as the entry in the Gavet catalogue. These indicate the state of the panel before the polygonal modification. By comparison, a second set of black-and-white photographs, also in the Richter Archive, shows the painting with its now familiar polygonal shape (fig. 7).33 Here the portrait bears a marked reduction in shading around the face and subtle refinement to the outline along the front of the neck. This set of photographs may have originated with the Silberman Galleries and they very likely provide a point of reference to what Suida claimed was the painting’s “highly satisfactory state of preservation."34 After viewing the portrait in New York, Tietze wrote that it was the “best preserved of those attributed to this very rare master."35 Third and finally, is a photo negative that postdates treatment by the New York-based restorer Daniel Goldreyer who, in 1962, proposed the following: “Painting will be cleaned, cracks and missing areas will be filled, sealed and inpainted to match original texture and varnished."36 The result of this treatment was increased refinement around the face and to the hairline at the nape of the neck (fig. 8).37

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Figure 6: Archival photograph of Paolo Uccello’s Portrait of a Young Man, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, The Clowes Collection, 2014.87. National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, DC, Department of Image Collections, George M. Richter Archive, DLI 00016195.
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Figure 7: Archival photograph of Paolo Uccello’s Portrait of a Young Man, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, The Clowes Collection, 2014.87. National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, DC, Department of Image Collections, George M. Richter Archive, DPA 42214755.
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Figure 8: Archival photograph of Paolo Uccello’s Portrait of a Young Man, about 1963, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, The Clowes Collection, 2014.87.

The handling of this painting is difficult to access. It is structurally stable, but it suffers aesthetically from extremely thick and reticulated restorer’s varnish, damaged paint, and poorly aged restoration materials.38 Infrared reflectography (IRR) and high magnification reveal the extent of abrasion and damage to the original paint and the broad application of overpaint to the background as well as copious areas of retouching from earlier restoration campaigns, much of which has badly discolored (fig. 9).39 No underdrawing is visible in the infrared reflectogram, but raking light yields evidence of an incised line that delineates the garment, whereas a heavy indentation follows along the face and neck (fig. 10). Uccello was known to have used a metal stylus to incise lines as in Saint George Slaying the Dragon of about 1430 (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne) and The Hunt in the Forest.40 Further evidence of the working process is visible in the X-ray that reveals adjustments such as the presence of a second garment tie located just above that which is now visible and the Adam’s apple, which becomes less pronounced.

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Figure 9: Photomicrograph of hairline showing discolored inpainting of Paolo Uccello’s Portrait of a Young Man, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, The Clowes Collection, 2014.87.
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Figure 10: Raking light image of Paolo Uccello’s Portrait of a Young Man, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, The Clowes Collection, 2014.87.

Because of concerns related to the invasive nature of cross-section sampling, recent materials analysis was limited to in situ X-ray fluorescence (XRF).41 This non-destructive technique is useful toward identifying specific elements in association with pigments, but it does not distinguish between paint layers. As a result, readings from the Clowes painting provide cumulative element signals and not a stratified chronology of materials (see XRF results in the Technical Examination Report). Because of multiple, past treatments, it was not unexpected to find these results inconclusive. In general, there were strong signals for elements associated with lead white and earth pigments, materials that have been in use since antiquity, as well as weak or trace signals for zinc and titanium, expected to relate to later restoration campaigns. Of note was a strong signal for copper in areas of the garment suggesting the use of azurite that corresponds to a blue color, which is visible through some of the cracking; however, further analysis is required.

Cross-section sampling might yield more specific information regarding materials including that of the binding medium, which has yet to be identified. A clue may be implied by the presence of surface pitting located along the sitter’s white collar. This may suggest the loss of lead soaps, a condition associated with the reaction between an oil-based binder and a lead-based pigment, which would correspond with the strong lead signal recorded in that area (fig. 11. See also XRF readings nos. 10–12 in the Technical Examination Report).42 From at least the 1430s, Uccello employed oil-based media—glazes, tempera grassa, and oil paint—to varying degrees.43 These include the judicious application of glazes over silver leaf and tempera grassa used to paint the London Battle of San Romano and his wholesale use of oil on canvas for Saint George and the Dragon of about 1470 (London, National Gallery of Art).44

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Figure 11: Photomicrograph of the collar. Paolo Uccello’s Portrait of a Young Man, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, The Clowes Collection, 2014.87.

Archival and technical evidence have significantly broadened knowledge of this complex painting. Photographs provide a visual record documenting changes, and scientific analysis confirms that the technique and materials are consistent with fifteenth-century practices. Presuming the Prato frescoes were, indeed, painted by Uccello, then the attribution of the Clowes painting to him would not be unwarranted. However, further research and analysis are yet required and, for the time being, this Portrait of a Young Man remains enigmatic.

Author

Rebecca Norris

Provenance

Probably Emile Gavet (1830–1904), Paris.45

Probably Count Tassilo Festetics (1850–1933), Budapest.46

Possibly (Duveen Brothers, Paris) in the inter-war period.47

(E. and A. Silberman Galleries, New York);

G.H. A. Clowes, Indianapolis, in 1942;48

Clowes Fund Collection, Indianapolis, in 1958, and on long-term loan to the Indianapolis Museum of Art since 1971 (C10001);

Given to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, now the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, in 2014.

Exhibitions

Indiana University Museum of Art, Bloomington, 1962, Italian and Spanish Paintings from the Clowes Fund Collection, no. 6;

Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy, 2002 [extended to 26 January 2003], Masaccio e le origini del Rinascimento;

Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, 2019, Life and Legacy: Portraits from the Clowes Collection, as Circle of Uccello.

References

Mark Roskill, “Clowes Collection Catalogue” (unpublished typed manuscript, IMA Clowes archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN, 1968);

A. Ian Fraser, A Catalogue of the Clowes Collection (Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1973), 26 (reproduced);

C. Volpe, “Paolo Uccello a Bologna”. Paragone, XXXI, 365 (July 1980): 3–28, in particular 16, fig. 6 (reproduced);

Alessandro Angelini, Pittura di luce: Giovanni di Francesco e l’arte fiorentina di metà Quattrocento, ed. Luciano Bellosi (Milan: Electa, 1990), 73–77;

Miklós Boskovits “Da Masaccio a Piero dell Pollaiolo: Studi sul ritratto Fiorentino Quattrocentesco,” Arte Cristiana 85, no. 781 (July–August 1997): 255–63, fig. 1 (reproduced);

Laurence B. Kanter, “The ‘cose piccole’ of Paolo Uccello. Apollo (August 2000): 11–20, fig. 14 (reproduced);

Miklós Boskovits, “Appunti sugli inizi di Masaccio e sulla pittura fiorentina del suo tempo,” in Masaccio e le origini del Rinascimento, ed. Luciano Bellosi, Lauro Cavazzini, and Aldo Galli, exh. cat. Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy, 20 September–21 December 2002 (Milan: Skira, 2002), 53–75, in particular 67;

Miklós Boskovits, “Paolo Uccello, Portrait of a Young Man, about 1430–1435,” in Masaccio e le origini del Rinascimento, ed. Luciano Bellosi, Lauro Cavazzini, and Aldo Galli, exh. cat. Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy, 20 September–21 December 2002 (Milan: Skira, 2002), 194–95, cat. no. 32 (reproduced);

Angelo Tartuferi, “La mostra ‘Masaccio e le origini del Rinascimento’ a San Giovanni Valdrano,” Gazzetta antiquaria 42, no. 2 (November 2002): 34–39;

Miklós Boskovits and David Alan Brown, ed., Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century, (Oxford University Press: New York and Oxford, 2003), 456n20, 593n17.

Hugh Hudson, Paolo Uccello: Artist of the Florentine Renaissance Republic (Saarbrücken: Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008), 2, 177–80, 278–80, cat. no.16; (reproduced);

Mauro Minardi, Paolo Uccello (Milan: 24 Ore Cultura, 2017), 113–15, fig. 97 (reproduced).

Notes

  1. I am thankful to the following for their technical expertise and shared observations: David Miller, former Chief Conservator and Senior Paintings Conservator; Linda Witkowski, Senior Paintings Conservator; Erica Schuler, former Clowes Fellow in Paintings Conservation; and Dr. Gregory Dale Smith, the Otto N. Frenzel III Senior Conservation Scientist. I am grateful to Dr. Dóra Sallay of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, and Ágota Varga for their insights including those on the Festetics Collection. During the final stages of this essay’s preparation, I benefited greatly from the thoughtful expertise of Professor Paul Joannides. ↩︎

  2. On portraiture see John Pope-Hennessy, The portrait in the Renaissance. The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, Bollingen Ser 35, no. 12 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 3–100; Gottfried Boehm, Bildnis und Individuum (Munich, 1985), 209–13. ↩︎

  3. On Alberti’s bronze self-portrait see National Gallery of Art, Washington, “Leon Battista Alberti, Self-Portrait, ca. 1435,” accessed 26 January 2022, https://www.nga.gov/Collection/art-object-page.43845.html. ↩︎

  4. Proponents for the Uccello attribution include Carlo Volpe, “Paolo Uccello a Bologna,” Paragone, vol. 31, no. 365 (July 1980), 3–28, in particular 16; Alessandro Angelini, Pittura di luce: Giovanni di Francesco e l’arte fiorentina di metà Quattrocento, ed. Luciano Bellosi (Milan: Electa, 1990), 73–77, in particular 73; Miklós Boskovits, “Studi sul ritratto fiorentino quattrocentesco­–I parte,” Arte Cristiana85, no. 781 (July–August 1997): 255–63, in particular 255; Laurence B. Kanter, “The ‘cose piccole’ of Paolo Uccello. Apollo (August 2000): 11–20, in particular 17, fig. 14; Miklós Boskovits, “Paolo Uccello, Portrait of a Young Man, about 1430-1435,” in Masaccio e le origini del Rinascimento, ed. Luciano Bellosi, Lauro Cavazzini and Aldo Galli, exh. cat. Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy, 20 September–21 December 2002 (Milan: Skira, 2002), 194-6, cat. no. 32; Miklós Boskovits, Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century, ed. Miklós Boskovits and David Alan Brown (Oxford University Press: New York and Oxford, 2003), 456n20, 593n17; Hugh Hudson, Paolo Uccello: Artist of the Florentine Renaissance Republic, (Saarbrücken: Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008), 2, 177–80, 278–80, cat. no. 16; and Mauro Minardi, Paolo Uccello (Milan: 24 Ore Cultura, 2107), 113–15, fig. 97. ↩︎

  5. See note 4. ↩︎

  6. “buono componitore e vario,” Cristoforo Landino, Scriti, Critici e Teorici, ed. Roberto Cardini, vol. 1 (Bulzoni, 1974), 124. “In molte case di Firenze sono assai quadri in perspettiva per vani di lettucci, letti, ed alter cose piccolo, di mano del medesimo…” Giorgio Vasari, Le opera de Giorgio Vasari, vol. 3, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, vol. 2 [1550 and 1568] (Florence, Sansoni, 1966–1987), 203–19, in particular 213–14. On Uccello’s oeuvre see Mario Salmi, Paolo Uccello, Andrea del Castagno, Domenico Veneziano (Rome: Casa editrice d'arte “Valori plastici,” 1936); Wilhelm Boeck, Paolo Uccello: Der Florentiner Meister und Sein Werk (Berlin, 1939); John Pope-Hennessy, The Complete Work of Paolo Uccello (London and New York: Phaidon Press Limited, 1969); Anna Padoa Rizzo, Paolo Uccello: Catalogo completo dei dipinti (Florence: Cantini, 1991); and Franco and Stefano Borsi, Paolo Uccello (London: Thames and Hudson, 1994); Hugh Hudson, Paolo Uccello: Artist of the Florentine Renaissance Republic, (Saarbrücken: VDM, 2008); and Mauro Minardi, Paolo Uccello (Milan: 24 Ore Cultura, 2017). Also see Georg Pudelko, “The Early Works of Paolo Uccello,” The Art Bulletin16, no. 3 (September 1934): 230–59. Lorenzo Sbaraglio, “Paolo di Dono detto Paolo Uccello,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 81, accessed 26 January 2022, http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/paolo-di-dono-detto-paolo-uccello_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/. A critical reception of Uccello’s work is offered by Roberto Longhi, Fatti di Masolino e Masaccio e altri studi sul Quattrocento (Florence: Sansoni, 1975), 44–45. See English translation cited in Laurence B. Kanter, “The ‘cose piccole’ of Paolo Uccello. Apollo (August 2000): 11–12 per Roberto Longhi, Three Studies, trans. David Tabbat and David Jacobson (Riverdale-on-Hudson, NY: Stanley Moss-Sheep Meadow Press, 1995), 60–61. ↩︎

  7. Hugh Hudson, Paolo Uccello: Artist of the Florentine Renaissance Republic, (Saarbrücken: VDM, 2008), 11–13. ↩︎

  8. Painting information given here is taken from the websites of the holding institutions. National Gallery of London, “Paolo Uccello, The Battle of San Romano, probably about 1438–1440 (NG583), accessed 26 January 2022, https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/paolo-uccello-the-battle-of-san-romano; Louvre Museum, Paris, “Paolo Uccello, La Bataille de San Romano: la contre-attaque de Micheletto Attendolo da Cotignola, 1450–1475 (M.I. 469)”, accessed 26 January 2022, https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010065339; and Uffizi Gallery, Florence, “Paolo Uccello, Battle of San Romano, ca. 1435­–1440 (1890 no. 479)”, accessed 26 January 2022, https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/battle-of-san-romano. ↩︎

  9. Lorenza Melli, “Nuove indagini sui disegni di Paolo Uccello agli Uffizi: disegno sottostante, technical, funzione,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Istitutes in Florenz, vol. 42, no. 1 (1998): 1­–39. Hugh Hudson, Paolo Uccello: Artist of the Florentine Renaissance Republic (Saarbrücken: Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008, 2008), 130–46. ↩︎

  10. Portraits in the San Romano scenes are those speculatively identified as the condottieri Niccolò da Tolentino (probably after 1375–1435) and Micheletto Attendolo, also known as Micheletto da Cotignola (about 1390–1451) (London’s National Gallery of Art and the Louvre in Paris, respectively). Also see Hugh Hudson, Paolo Uccello: Artist of the Florentine Renaissance Republic, (Saarbrücken: VDM, 2008), 169–70, 266–67, cat. nos. 9–11. ↩︎

  11. The comparative figures include a male in the Disputation of Saint Stephen shown wearing a red turban and various medallion portrait busts located in the border framing these scenes. Miklós Boskovits, “Paolo Uccello, Portrait of a Young Man, about 1430–1435,” in Masaccio e le origini del Rinascimento, ed. Luciano Bellosi, Lauro Cavazzini and Aldo Galli, exh. cat. Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy, 20 September–21 December 2002 (Milan: Skira, 2002), 196. No known contract or surviving documentation specifically names Paolo Uccello as the author of the Marcovaldi Chapel frescoes. However, he was reportedly in Prato between the winter of 1435 and spring of 1436. Today, these frescoes are generally attributed to Uccello with portions by Andrea di Giusti. Anna Padoa Rizzo, La Cappella dell’Assunta nel Duomo di Prato (Prato, 1997), 9, 35–40. Angelini dates the frescoes around 1433; see Alessandro Angelini, “Paolo Uccello, il beato Jacopone da Todi, e la datazione degli affreschi di Prato,” Prospettiva, no. 61 (January 1991): 49–53, in particular 51 and n24. Also see Mauro Minardi, Paolo Uccello (Milan: 24 Ore Cultura, 2017). ↩︎

  12. Miklós Boskovits, “Paolo Uccello, Portrait of a Young Man, about 1430–1435,” in Masaccio e le origini del Rinascimento, ed. Luciano Bellosi, Lauro Cavazzini and Aldo Galli, exh. cat. Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy, 20 September–21 December 2002 (Milan: Skira, 2002), 196. Also see Hugh Hudson, Paolo Uccello: Artist of the Florentine Renaissance Republic, (Saarbrücken: Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008), 279, 259–262, cat. no. 5. ↩︎

  13. Paul Joannides, Masaccio and Masolino: A Complete Catalogue (London: Abrams, 1993), 350–51. ↩︎

  14. Most recently see Laurence B. Kanter, “The ‘cose piccole’ of Paolo Uccello,” Apollo (August 2000). Also see Jean Lipman, “The Florentine Profile Portrait in the Quattrocento,” The Art Bulletin18, no. 1 (March 1936): 54–102. Rab Hatfield, “Five Early Renaissance Portraits,” The Art Bulletin 47, no. 3 (Sep 1965): 315-334. Florentine, Matteo Olivieri (?), about 1430s, tempera (and oil?) on panel transferred to canvas, 18 7/8 × 13 7/16 in. (48 × 34.1 cm), National Gallery, Washington, DC, 1937.1.15. National Gallery, “Florentine, Matteo Olivieri (?), c. 1430s,” accessed 26 January 2022, https://www.nga.gov/Collection/art-object-page.17.html. Master of the Castello Nativity, Portrait of Michele Olivieri, about 1450, tempera on panel, 17 3/4 × 12 3/4 in. (45.1 × 32.4 cm), Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, 83.584. Chrysler Museum, “Master of the Castello Nativity, Portrait of Michele Olivieri, c. 1450,” accessed 26 January 2022, http://chrysler.emuseum.com/objects/14849/portrait-of-michele-olivieri?ctx=38088f15-adc2-43ae-9967-07d6cfbcfbbc&idx=0. Portrait of a Man, about 1430, tempera on panel, 47 × 36 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Chambéry, 930. Paul Joannides, Masaccio and Masolino a Complete Catalogue (London: Abrams, 1993), 458, no. U3. Hugh Hudson, Paolo Uccello: Artist of the Florentine Renaissance Republic, (Saarbrücken: Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008), 210, 220n47, 334–35, cat. no. 66. ↩︎

  15. Painting information given here is taken from the website of the holding institution. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, “The Hunt in the Forest, c. 1465–1470 (WA1850.31),” accessed 26 January 2022, https://www.ashmolean.org/hunt-forest. ↩︎

  16. Painting information given here is taken from the website of the holding institution. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, “Attributed to Paolo Uccello, A Young Lady of Fashion, early 1460s (P27W58),” accessed 26 January 2022, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience
    /collection/12396    . Kanter favors the Uccello attribution. Laurence B. Kanter, “The ‘cose piccole’ of Paolo Uccello. Apollo (August 2000): 19. Hudson and Minardi instead favor an attribution to the Master of Castello Nativity; see Hugh Hudson, Paolo Uccello: Artist of the Florentine Renaissance Republic, (Saarbrücken: Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008), 325, cat. no. 56. Mauro Minardi, Paolo Uccello (Milan: 24 Ore Cultura, 2017), 280–82, fig. 209. For a comparison, see Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, “Master of the Castello Nativity, Portrait of a Woman, probably 1450s (49.7.6)” accessed 26 January 2022, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437000. ↩︎

  17. Letter from Edith Whitehill Clowes to Mr. Silberman, 2 February 1965, File 2014.87 (C10077), Clowes Registration Archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. ↩︎

  18. Venturi’s certificate of authenticity (dated 20 June 1941) is attached to the letter written by Dr. Clowes to Dr. Luisa Vertova, 24 March 1954, Correspondence Files, Clowes Registration Archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. A second copy of Venturi’s certificate is not dated. See File 2014.87 (C10077), Clowes Registration Archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. Hudson cites the date as date 20 June 1940 per a copy of Venturi’s letter at the Villa I Tatti Fototeca. Hugh Hudson, Paolo Uccello: Artist of the Florentine Renaissance Republic (Saarbrücken: Verlag Dr. Müller, 2008, 2008), 278. Letter from Hans Tietze to Mr. Silberman, 27 June 1941, File 2014.87 (C10077), Clowes Registration Archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. Letter from William Suida, n.d., File 2014.87 (C10077). Also see William Suida to Mr. Silberman, 10 September 1941, File 2014.87 (C10077). Both in Clowes Registration Archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. ↩︎

  19. Mark Roskill, “Clowes Collection Catalogue” (unpublished typed manuscript, IMA Clowes Archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN, 1968). ↩︎

  20. Translations are by the author unless otherwise noted. “Ma quale sigillo da perfezione formale, quale felice complicità dell'occhio e del compasso; e che dialogo sottile, solitario, tra forma colma voltata nello spazio, e il taglio del profile!” Carlo Volpe, “Paolo Uccello a Bologna,” Paragone, vol. 31, no. 365 (July 1980), 3–28, in particular 16. Franco and Stefano Borsi, Paolo Uccello (Milan: Leonardo, 1992). ↩︎

  21. Alessandro Angelini, after 1434 (1990); Miklós Boskovits, about 1430–1435 (1997, 2002, and 2003); Laurence Kanter, 1440s to early 1450s (2000); Hugh Hudson, early/mid-1440s (2008), and Mauro Minardi, before 1450 (2017)See note 4. ↩︎

  22. Miklós Boskovits, “Paolo Uccello, Portrait of a Young Man, about 1430-1435,” in Masaccio e le origini del Rinascimento, eds. Luciano Bellosi, Lauro Cavazzini and Aldo Galli, exh. cat. Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy, 20 September-21 December 2002 (Milan: Skira, 2002), 194-6, cat. no. 32. ↩︎

  23. According to this letter, it was Everett Fahy who suggested that Boskovits contact the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Letter from Miklós Boskovits to Brett Waller, 27 June 2001, File 2014.87 (C10077), Clowes Registration Archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. Roskill had been in contact with Fahy at the time the painting was sent to the Fogg for analysis. Mark Roskill, “Clowes Collection Catalogue” (unpublished typed manuscript, IMA Clowes Archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN, 1968). Also see notes 40–41. ↩︎

  24. “…che per alcuni aspetti ‘costringe’ ad una percezione di incredibile modernità, tale da non esorcizzare completamente i sospetti di non autenticità che in maniera più o meno larvata l'hanno da sempre accompagnata.” Angelo Tartuferi, “La mostra ‘Masaccio e le origini del Rinascimento’ a San Giovanni Valdrano,” Gazzetta antiquaria, vol. 42, no. 2 (November 2002): 34–39, in particular 39. ↩︎

  25. David Miller, condition report C10077 (2014.87), 10 December 2001, Conservation Department Files, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. ↩︎

  26. While a tondo is a highly unusual choice for a portrait, see the entry on Portrait of Hans Holbein after Hans Holbein the Younger in this catalogue. Roberta J. M. Olson, “Lost and Partially Found: The Tondo, a Significant Florentine Art Form, in Documents of the Renaissance,” Artibus et Historiae 14, no. 27 (1993): 31–65. Circular and polygonal panels are associated with a type of object known as a desco da parto, a gift tray related to childbirth. These objects were typically embellished with family coats of arms, putti, scenes of motherhood, and moral exemplars. Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, “The Medici-Tornabuoni Desco da Parto in Context,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 33 (1998): 137–51, in particular 143. The elaborate polygon, a hexadecagon, is a fitting nod to Uccello’s fascination with multifaceted forms such as the mazzocchi. ↩︎

  27. As in note 18. ↩︎

  28. Boskovits misspells Gavet as “Gravet”. Miklós Boskovits, “Paolo Uccello, Portrait of a Young Man, about 1430–1435,” in Masaccio e le origini del Rinascimento, eds. Luciano Bellosi, Lauro Cavazzini and Aldo Galli, exh. cat. Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy, 20 September–21 December 2002 (Milan: Skira, 2002), 194. ↩︎

  29. “Portrait d’homme, École Ombrienne, fin du xve, siècle, Le personnage, un jeune homme imberbe, dont le visage est encadré de longs cheveux bouclés que coiffe un bonnet à bords étroits, est vu à mi-corps. Vêtu d'un pourpoint vert somber muni d’un petit collet brodé d'or et de manches vert clair, il tourne la tête vers la droite et la renverse, la bouche dans une attitude extatique. Fond vert somber. Panneau de chêne, Diam. 0, 47.” P. Chevalier, Catalogue des objets d’art et de haute curiosité de la Renaissance, tableaux, tapisseries, composant la collection de M. Emile Gavet: vente à Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 31 mai–9 juin 1897 (Paris: Mannheim, père et fils, 1897), 194, cat. no. 756, aBottom of Formccessed 26 January 2022, https://babel.hathitrust.org
    /cgi/pt?id=njp.32101068043866;view=1up;seq=13    ; also see an annotated copy of the accompanying sales list. P. Chevalier, Catalogue des objets d’art et de haute curiosité de la Renaissance, tableaux, tapisseries, composant la collection de M. Emile Gavet: vente à Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 31 mai–9 juin 1897 (Paris: Mannheim, père et fils, 1897), 73, cat. no. 756, accessed 26 January 2022, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k12451012. The sale included two Milanese portraits (one male and one female), each on a twelve-sided panel. Chevalier, Catalogue (1897), 190, nos. 739–40. These may indicate a taste for polygonal-shaped portraits, but whether or not the format was original or a modification is not known. Their descriptions correspond with images of paintings linked to Gavet’s collection found in the Photo Archive of the Fondazione Federico Zeri, accessed 6 February 2018, http://catalogo.
    fondazionezeri.unibo.it/ricerca.v2.jsp?locale=it&decorator=layout_resp&apply=true&percorso_ricerca=OA&filtroprovenienza_OA=8105%7C6499&sortby=LOCALIZZAZIONE&batch=10    . Many thanks to Dóra Sallay, Curator of Italian Paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, for drawing this to my attention. These two panels appear to relate to a type of portrait bust used to decorate tavolette (ceiling panels). Rebecca Norris, “Beyond the battlefield: Venice’s condottieri families and artistic patronage—The Colleoni of Bergamo, Martinengo di Padernello of Brescia and the Savorgnan del Monte of Udine (1450–1600)” (PhD diss., Cambridge University, 2014), 50–53. This pair corresponds to object nos. 818–819 listed in Gavet’s earlier Collection Catalog (1889) along with a second pair of portraits that were also on twelve-sided panels. Émile Molinier, Collection Emile Gavet: catalogue raisonné précédé d’une et́ude historique et archéologique sur les oeuvres d’art qui composent cette collection (Paris: Imprimerie de D. Jouaust, 1889), 191–92, nos. 815–816 and 818–19, accessed 26 January 2022, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6475154j/. ↩︎

  30. See “Distinguishing Marks” section of the Technical Examination Report. ↩︎

  31. Miklós Boskovits, “Paolo Uccello, Portrait of a Young Man, about 1430–1435,” in Masaccio e le origini del Rinascimento, eds. Luciano Bellosi, Lauro Cavazzini and Aldo Galli, exh. cat. Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy, 20 September–21 December 2002 (Milan: Skira, 2002), 194. The Festetics family seat until 1944 was Keszthely Castle in Hungary. Inventories for the castle are in the Hungarian National Archives: October 1782, MNL OLP 236–9, no. 1 (box 91, fol. 506–577); 1866/1872, MNL OL P 236–9 (vol. 98, fol. 378–94); 1911, MNL OL P 236–9, no. 1 (box 94, fol. 692–703). The descriptions are too general to provide a specific identification for the paintings. I am grateful to Ágota Varga for bringing these to my attention. Email communication between Rebecca Norris and Ágota Varga, 11 May 2018. ↩︎

  32. To clarify, there are two copies of the same oversized gelatin print, a type widespread since the 1870s. Each is housed within its respective archive within the National Gallery of Art Library in Washington, DC. René Huyghe Archive, File #DLI00016195: “Uccello (per Fahy visit 2003) / 57 x 47 cm / Italie XVIe; Faux” / Duveen Brothers, Inc. 25, Place du Marché Saint-Honoré, 25 Paris-1er [stamp]; and George Richter Archive, File #DLI165005391: “Uccello (per Fahy visit 2003 / 0 m 57 cm x 0 m 47 cm / Probably hoped to look like Castagno or Uccello / Duveen Brothers, inc. 25, Place du Marché Saint-Honoré, 25 Paris-1er [stamp]. The Richter Archive was gifted to the National Gallery of Art in 1943. Many thanks to Melissa Beck Lemke for her assistance with the photographic collection. Email communication between Rebecca Norris and Melissa Beck Lemke, Image Specialist for Italian Art, Library Image Collections, National Gallery of Art, email correspondence, 8 May 2018. ↩︎

  33. George Richter Archive, File# DLI44214755(full view image): “Italian School, 15th C. / Uccello (per E Fahy visit 2003)"; and File# DLI42214828 (detail image): “Italian School, 15th century / Uccello (per E Fahy visit 2003)”. ↩︎

  34. Letter from William Suida to Mr. Silberman, 10 September 1941, File 2014.87 (C10077), Clowes Registration Archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. ↩︎

  35. Letter from Hans Tietze to Mr. Silberman, 27 June 1941, File 2014.87 (C10077), Clowes Registration Archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. ↩︎

  36. Letters from Allen Clowes to Daniel Goldreyer, 20 February 1962, 20 July 1962, and 29 November 1962; letter Daniel Goldreyer to Allen Clowes, 22 February 1962; and letter Pauline Murphy to Daniel Goldreyer, 19 February 1962, Correspondence Files, Clowes Registration Archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. ↩︎

  37. Photo negative in an envelope labeled “after Goldreyer restoration Spring 1963,” Clowes Registration Archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. ↩︎

  38. David Miller, condition report, C10077 (2014.87), Conservation Department Files, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. Conservation treatment has been limited to light surface cleaning. See also conservation notes and treatment report, 1990, C10077 (2014.87), Conservation Department Files, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.. ↩︎

  39. David Miller, condition report, C10077 (2014.87), Conservation Department Files, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.. Abrasion and inpainting are visible in photomicrographs taken from areas at the eye, mouth, and forehead. Photomicrography and analysis by Erica Schuler, Clowes Fellow in Paintings Conservation, June 2017. ↩︎

  40. Painting information given here is taken from the website of the holding institution. National Gallery of Victoria, “Saint George Slaying the Dragon, c. 1430 (2124-4),” accessed 26 January 2022, https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/3747/; Hugh Hudson, “A Knight in Shining Armour, a Virgin—Uccello’s Melbourne Saint George and the Dragon and Oxford Annunciation,” Art Journal 46 (National Gallery of Victoria, 2006), accessed 26 January 2022, https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/a-knight-in-shining-armour-a-virgin-uccellos-melbourne-saint-george-and-the-dragon-and-oxford-annunciation/; and Hugh Hudson, “The Materials and Technique of Two Panel Paintings Attributed to Paolo Uccello: The Oxford Annunciation and the Melbourne Saint George,” La Peinture Ancienne et ses Procédés: Copies Répliques, Pastiches, Colloque XV, Bruges, 11–13 September 2003, ed. Hélène Verougstraete and Jacqueline Couvert (Leuven, Paris, and Dudley, MA: Uitgeverij Peeters, 2006), 6–17. On The Hunt in the Forest see Ann Massing and Nicola Christie, “The Hunt in the Forest by Paolo Uccello,” The Hamilton Kerr Institute, n. 1 (1988): 30–47; Martin Kemp, Ann Massing, Nicola Christie, and Karin Groen, “Paolo Uccello’s ‘Hunt in the Forest,'” The Burlington Magazine (March 1991): 164–78; and Catherine Whistler, Paolo Uccello’s The Hunt in the Forest (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2001). ↩︎

  41. XRF analysis was conducted by Gregory Dale Smith with David Miller and Rebecca Norris, 27 November 2017. ↩︎

  42. Silvia A. Centeno, Jaclyn Catalano, Cecil Dybowski, Nicholas Zumbulyadis, Yao Yao, and Anna Murphy, “Investigating the Formation and Structure of Lead Soaps in Traditional Oil Paintings,” accessed 27 October 2017, https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/conservation
    -and-scientific-research/projects/lead-soaps    . Also see Marine Cotte, Emilie Checroun, Wout De Nolf, Yoko Taniguchi, et al., “Lead soaps in paintings: Friends or foes?,” Studies in Conservation 62, no. 1 (2017): 2–23, accessed 28 February 2018, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi
    /full/10.1080/00393630.2016.1232529    . ↩︎

  43. Jill Dunkerton and Ashok Roy, “Uccello’s Saint George and the Dragon: Technical Evidence Re-evaluated,” National Gallery Technical Bulletin 19 (1998): 26–30. Ashok Roy and Dillian Gordon, “Uccello’s Battle of San Romano,” National Gallery Technical Bulletin 22 (2001): 4–17. ↩︎

  44. Ashok Roy and Dillian Gordon, “Uccello’s Battle of San Romano,” National Gallery Technical Bulletin 22 (2001): 4–17, in particular 9. Painting information given here is taken from the website of the holding institution. National Gallery, “Saint George and the Dragon, about 1470 (NG6294),” accessed 26 January 2022, https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/paolo-uccello-saint-george-and-the-dragon. ↩︎

  45. In an undated expertise, probably from the early 1940s, Lionello Venturi identifies the painting as having been in the “Emile Gavet Collection, Paris, about 50 years ago.” Several French customs stamps appear on the back of the painting. ↩︎

  46. The name “Taszillo Fesztetics [sic] B Pest” is written in pencil on one of the stretcher bars. ↩︎

  47. Miklós Boskovits refers to the existence of a photograph stamped “Duveen Brothers Inc., Paris” in the Richter Archive of Illustrations of Art at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; see his contribution to Luciano Bellosi et al., eds., Masaccio e le origini del Rinasciemento (Milan: Skira, 2002) no. 32, 194–196. ↩︎

  48. A cancelled check made out to E. & A. Silberman, in payment for a painting by Uccello, is dated 12 November 1942; see File: Packet of checks, Clowes Registration Archive, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. ↩︎