Portrait of Dante Alighieri,
oil on panel, 48 x 38 cm, framed

Even long after his death, the celebrated Italian poet Dante Alighieri (Florence 1265–1321 Ravenna) continued to be a popular subject for portraitists, particularly amongst sixteenth-century Florentine artists, as seen in the present composition. Indeed, the features of the poet are treated according to traditional Florentine iconography.

The present work can be compared to several similar compositions, including a portrait of Dante, in the Pinacoteca Civica in Palazzo Volpi, Como. Other versions, with some variations, are found in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, and a work sold at Dorotheum, Vienna (24 April 2018, lot 14). In the present portrait, as in the Como composition, detail of Dante’s hand holding the book is missing. However, the folds of the dress, the lapels of the collar and the disposition of the laurel wreath’s leaves are rendered in a similar manner. The intense expression and facial characteristics recall the portraiture of early Florentine mannerism, including the works of Pontormo.

One of first depictions of Dante is found in the fresco of the Cappella del Podestà in the Museo del Bargello, Florence. Other esteemed exponents of the Florentine Renaissance were engaged in depicting the famous poet. Among those is the portrait of Dante showing the Divine Comedy in the fresco in Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, by Domenico di Michelino from 1465, and a depiction realised by Andrea del Castagno in a fresco of the cenacle in Santa Apollonia, Florence. Artists such as 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 of Dante.