Anthonis Mor

Exhibited by Nicholas Hall

Material oil on panel

Dimensions 99 x 71.8 cm

Place of Creation Antwerp

Status Vetted

About the Work

The Half-Length Portrait of a Man by Anthonis Mor is an exceptionally rare work from his Antwerp period, circa 1550. Following this pivotal moment in his career, the Utrecht-born artist would go on to become one of the most celebrated portrait painters of his time, producing the likeness of Europe’s most powerful figures such as Philip II of Spain, King John III of Portugal and Mary Tudor, future Queen of England. As Koenraad Jonckheere observes, this panel exemplifies the fundamental transformation in portraiture that took place in Antwerp –– one that synthesizes the naturalism of Jan van Scorel with the colorito and courtly swagger of Titian.

Until last year Half-Length Portrait of a Man has remained in the family of the American magnate Samuel H. Kress. Another storied collection to which it has belonged is that of Angela, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts, one of the richest women and philanthropists in Victorian England.

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Provenance

Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts (1814–1906), 1 Stratton Street, London
Her sale, Christie’s, London, 4 May 1922, lot 106
with Frank T. Sabin, London
with Count Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi, Rome; sold to
Samuel H. Kress (1863–1955), New York, by 1929; his brother
Rush H. Kress (1877–1963), New York; by inheritance, his wife,
Mrs. Rush H. Kress (1911–2003), New York
thence by descent until 2024; acquired by
Private Collection, United States

Literature

Colin Eisler, Complete Catalogue of the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Paintings Excluding Italian, Oxford, 1977, p. 97, no. KX-I, reproduced fig. 82.