Portrait of Dante Alighieri,
inscribed at the upper edge: DANTES ALIGHERIVS,
oil on panel, 65.5 x 49 cm, in a tabernacle frame

Provenance:
Kunsthandlung Wilhelm Gloose, Berlin, 1940;
where purchased by Arbogast von Plawenn (1883–1951) in 1940;
thence by descent to his heirs, private collection, Southern Germany

The present portrait shows Dante Alighieri (Florence 1265–1321 Ravenna) and numerous posthumously painted portrayals of Dante attest to his enduring fame as a writer. His portrait continued to be a popular subject after his death, particularly in sixteenth-century Florentine art, such as the present composition. The present work is a fine example from this period and derives from an iconographic tradition setting in shortly after Dante’s death.

One of the earliest depictions of Dante is the fresco in the Capella del Podestà in the Bargello Museum, Florence, showing Dante in his famous red garment against the backdrop of Paradise. This full-length representation of Dante in profile, a work by Giotto or his school, is one of the oldest known portraits of the poet. Other leading artists of Florentine painting also incorporated the writer in their oeuvre. One of the most celebrated examples is the portrait in the fresco by Domenico di Michelino from 1465 in the church of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, which shows the poet in front of his most famous intellectual creation, the nine circles of hell from his narrative poem, the Divine Comedy, which the sitter also holds in his hands. In 1495, Sandro Botticelli painted an important portrait showing Dante in profile, which today is one of the most well-known and most widespread depictions of the poet. Artists like Raphael in his Stanze at the Vatican and Bronzino in the Uffizi, as well as cycles of portraits of illustrious men, contributed to the dissemination of a particular iconography for Dante that has contributed to his recognisability to this day, and which is also evident in the present painting in the form of the red robe and cap usually worn by Florentine diplomats, the elongated face with the hooked nose, and the laurel wreath, the so-called ‘crown of poets’. At the dawn of humanism, this evergreen wreath of laurel leaves, harking back to an ancient Greek and Roman tradition, was bestowed on the most distinguished poets as the greatest honour.

A version comparable to the present portrait is conserved at the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. Although similar, the two paintings are not identical. The present portrait appears more carefully executed, particularly as far as the proportions of the head, neck, and shoulders are concerned. Here Dante does not present the contents of the book as he appears to do in the Yale version with the pages facing outwards. Moreover, the two projecting fingers resting on the cover of the book in the present painting differ in length and shape. In the present painting, Dante’s fingers are more gracefully spread and seem to be based on Jacopo da Pontormo’s early style. The intense expression and feature of the face recall the portraiture of early Florentine Mannerism, also recall Pontormo’s approach to the representation of the human figure. The present painting, whose authorship has not yet been clarified, represents a significant type of Dante portraits produced in sixteenth-century Florence.