(Venice 1566–1638)
Portrait of a nobleman, full-length, in gilded armour, a red sash and a white ruff, flanked by a plumed helmet and a shield,
oil on canvas, 198 x 104 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Mauro Lucco for suggesting the attribution after examining the present painting in the original.

The present painting is a typical example of a ritratto da parata, or commemorative portrait, of a pictorial type that was intended to celebrate the political and social status of the sitter, especially popular in Northern Italy at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century.

Sante Peranda was one of the most refined painters of the late Mannerist period in Venice working in the wake of the great masters of the Cinquecento: Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto. The painter trained in the studios of Paolo Fiammingo, Leonardo Corona as well as Jacopo Palma the Younger. Biographer Marco Boschini, reported that Peranda followed Palma but ‘had such a light and elegantly graceful manner, that one can truly say he surpassed his master in gracefulness’ [‘ebbe maniera così graziosa, gentile e leggiadra, che si può dir veramente che in gentilezza superasse il Maestro’] (see M. Boschini, Le ricche minere della pittura veneziana, Venice 1674, s. p.). It is thought that in 1608 the painter left his master’s studio for Mirandola by invitation of Prince Alessandro I and remained until 1627. Peranda also worked for the nearby court of Cesare d’Este, the first Duke of the Modena-based branch of that family, and the brother-in-law of Alessandro I. In addition to completing the secular pictorial cycles, the painter focused on the execution of a pictorial dynastic gallery for Duke Alessandro, as well as producing various altarpieces and sacred subjects for private devotion.