Portrait of a Gentleman, standing three quarter length in a fur-lined coat

The original, dated 1565, oil on canvas, 115 x 96 cm, entered the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, at the beginning of the 19th century. Before it was kept till at least 1773 in the Casa Navagero alla Pieta, the Venetian palace of the descendents of the sitter. Antonio Navagero served during the years 1564-5 as governor (podestá) of the city of Bergamo and is portrayed in the lynxfur-lined cloak of red silk that suited his office. The painter he posed for, the local Giovan Battista Moroni (1525-78), was among the foremost portraitist of Northern Italy in the third quarter of the 16th century (M. Gregori, 'Giovan Battista Moroni' in I pittori Bergamaschi dal XIII al XIX secolo: Il Cinquecento III, Bergamo, 1979, pp. 280-1, no.138, ill. pp. 183, 355). The artist of the present lot has reduced the original three-quarter standing portrait into a half-length bust portrait, probably in order to obtain more intimacy than the original he wished to copy.

See illustration