Francesco II Gonzaga, Fourth Marquis of Mantua

Provenance

Quincy Shaw, Boston.[1] (Schoenemann Galleries, Inc., New York); sold 24 July 1940 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1943 to NGA. [1] Lionello Venturi, writing to Mr. Schoenemann on 28 March 1940 (copy of letter in NGA curatorial files), informs him that "Your picture was formerly in the collection of the late Mr. J. Quincy Shaw, Boston." This is likely to be Quincy Adams Shaw (1826-1908)--the "J" repeating an error made in Bernard Berenson's _Venetian Painters of the Renaissance_ (1894), where Shaw is listed in an index as the owner of three paintings. Quincy Shaw, brother of the famed Union army officer Robert Gould Shaw, was a Boston businessman whose collection of art included Italian renaissance sculpture and paintings, nineteenth-century French paintings and drawings, and Japanse decorative arts. [2] The bill of sale from Schoenemann to the Kress Foundation (copy in NGA curatorial files) describes the painting as "'Portrait Of A Young Man' profile, blue background, by Ercole da Ferrara, also known as Ercole Roberti." See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/840.

Francesco II Gonzaga, Fourth Marquis of Mantua

Baldassare d'Este

c. 1474/1480

Accession Number

1943.4.41

Medium

tempera on poplar panel

Dimensions

overall: 26.5 x 21 cm (10 7/16 x 8 1/4 in.) | framed: 49.5 x 44.5 cm (19 1/2 x 17 1/2 in.)

Classification

Painting

Museum

National Gallery of Art

Washington, D.C., United States

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection