(Modena circa 1512–1571 Fontainebleau)
Portrait of a lancer, half-length, with a plumed hat,
oil on panel, 64.8 x 51.4 cm, framed

Provenance:
Conte Leonida Mattaroli, Castel Marino;
Dona Maria Costa, Palermo, Sicily and Plainfield, New Jersey;
Julius Held Collection, Old Bennington, Vermont;
his sale, Christie’s, New York, 27 January 2009, lot 40 (as Nicolò dell’Abate);
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Giuseppe Cirillo for confirming the attribution to Nicolò dell’Abate on the basis of a high resolution digital photograph.

Nicolò dell’Abate´s portraits mostly date from the artist´s Italian years, and he was also employed to paint the portraits of the King and Queen when he arrived in France in 1552. Although the artist’s fame in Italy came principally from painting in fresco, such as his decorations in the Palazzo Poggi in Bologna, the fluid technique that he adopted in this medium also permeated to his oil paintings. His work is characterised by use of vivid colours bound in tempera grassa, which was a technique he derived from Parmigianino, who was in Bologna between 1527-1530. Nicolò´s work also displays the influence of Venetian painting, including the works of Bartolomeo Veneto, in portraits such as Lady with a Green Turban in the Prado, Madrid and the Portrait of a Lady in the Borghese Gallery, Rome. Another pronounced influence on Nicolò were the works of Sebastiano Del Piombo, including the Man with a Falcon in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, and the Man with a Parrot in Vienna, Kunsthistoriches Museum.

The present work has stylistic affinities with the Portrait of a Young Man in the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Antica In Palazzo Barberini, Rome and the vivid tactile quality of the face that appears carefully worked displays the realism that Parmigianino introduced into Emilian portraiture. The portrait demonstrates the kind of accuracy that Girolamo da Carpi practiced in neighbouring Ferrara, although he tended towards a greater use of costume in his works, such as in the Portrait of a Lady (Renée de France?) in the Städel, Frankfurt, or the Portrait of Girolamo de’ Vincenti in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples. The present lancer has been painted with careful attention to detail, the informality in the gesture of the gloved hands, one of the sitter’s thumbs supported by the band of his slashed doublet, and the black reverse to his ruched shirt cuffs. In a similar manner to Parmigianino’s portraiture the cap and ostrich plume, held in place by a gilt bronze medallion seem to have been assigned particular importance by Nicolò and appears to have a particular significance, just as the bejewelled hairnets of his female sitters seem to give them a social rank. The lance that he is holding is a cavalry weapon, which is much more useful than a sword, but it is a ceremonial attribute, unlike the halberds carried by the Swiss Guards, which combined the effect of an axe with that of a spear. The ostrich feathers are a common denominator in several of Nicolò’s portraits and they were also often featured in his frescoes. For example, It Is possible to see them among the musicians in the fresco in Palazzo Poggi and in the narrative scenes in the frescos from Palazzo Tofanini-Zucchini Solimei, which are now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna