Portrait of a man
Collection of Prince Lichtenstein, Vaduz
The portrait comes from the Vasari book, but I personally doubt the attribution.
McKillop: Attributed to Franciabigio (quotation follows)
VADUZ, Collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein, no. 851. Portrait of a Man. Canvas, 55 X 40.
Prov: Florentine Collection of the Marchese Gino Capponi (seen there by Burckhardt during his 1853-1854 sojourn in Italy). Purchased from the estate of Gino Capponi in 1879 for the present collection. Transferred at the beginning of World War II from the Hofmuseum, Vienna, to Vaduz (italics mine).
Exh: Kunstmuseum, Lucerne, 1948.
Attr: Franciabigio: Burckhardt; Morelli (middle period, under the marked influence of Andrea del Sarto); Berenson; Venturi; Gronau; Freedberg (questioned in a later verbal suggestion); Sricchia.
Examination of the painting bears out Freedberg's revised opinion of alternate authorship. As a Franciabigio, the picture would have to be adjudged unique in a number of ways. The work may not be Italian, this two-dimensional treatment is common to the Antwerp minor masters near Massys. By whatever artist, the picture seems to have been painted in Florence, as the costume appears Florentine, and one cannot deny the ultimate source in Sarto's portraiture. Search in museums in Germany and Belgium yielded no comparable Northern hand; Tommaso di Stefano seems the most likely candidate. His interest in Northern art is clear. Perhaps by Tommaso under the influence of a Flemish visitor, or by a Northerner taken with the Florentine portrait style. A difficult picture to attribute.
Lit: Burckhardt [1869], III, 800; Morelli 1892, 99; Berenson lists: 1903, II; 1909, 135; 1932, 211; 1963, 66; note 1909; Gronau 191- 326; Venturi 1925, 442,ill. 446, 453; Kronfeld 1931, 167, no. 851; Freedberg 1961, 483; Sricchia 1963,14.
