(Antwerp c. 1519–1570)
Portrait of a bearded man
oil on panel, 85 x 73.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Sir Audley Dallas Neeld (1849–1941);
with Sam Burton Antiques, Cleveland, Ohio;
Dr. Paul J. Vignos (1919–2010), Hunting Valley, Ohio, in 1954;
Sale Leslie Hindman, Chicago, 2 November 2011, lot 41 (as Adriaen Thomasz Key);
Leslie Hindman, Chicago, 2. May 2012, Lot 420 (as Manner of Adriaen Thomasz Key);
European Private Collection

We are grateful to Carl van de Velde for confirming the present painting to be an autograph work by Frans Floris after examining it in the original.

The present portrait shows a bearded man in three-quarter profile, his left arm confidently supported on his hip, while his right hand, in which he holds a handkerchief (an extremely unusual motif for a male portrait), rests on a small table.

When the painting was in the collection of Sir Audley Neeld, it was considered a work by Anthonis Mor and later was assigned to the circle of Adriaen Thomasz. Key (see provenance). However, the free and dynamic manner of painting and the portrait’s colouring seem closer to the portraits by the Antwerp Romanist Frans Floris than to those by Mor and Key. Examples to be mentioned in this context could be such similarly freely painted portraits by Floris as Man with a Sword in Kassel (Wilhelmshöhe Castle), the Portrait of a Guild Officer in Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum), and the signed Portrait of a Falconer (Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum).

According to a label on the reverse, the portrait allegedly bore the date of 1567 when it was in the collection of Sir Audley Neeld. Although no trace of such a date can now be detected, an execution in the 1560s seems entirely plausible. First of all, the sitter’s costume points to the period in question: for example, the sitter in Man with a Scar on His Forehead by Frans Pourbus (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), dated 1564, wears the same ruff. Moreover, the portrait’s half-figure conception (which actually derived from such Italian models as Titian) is generally of a type that also became popular in the Netherlands from the middle of the 16th century onwards. This feature was repeatedly used not only by Anthonis Mor and Willem Key, but also by Frans Floris. This is exemplified by his above mentioned Portrait of a Falconer, dated 1558 and also closely related to the present composition in terms of the sitter’s appearance.

We are grateful to Björn Blauensteiner for his help in cataloguing the present painting.