(Cremona 1522–1591 Reggio Emilia)
Portrait of a gentleman with a dog,
oil on canvas, 130 x 103 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 8 June 1987, lot 33 (as Attributed to Bernardino Campi);
Private Collection, Los Angeles;
sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 11 January 1990, lot 32 (as Attributed to Bernardino Campi);
Private Collection;
sale, Christie’s, New York, 18 May 1994, lot 70 (as Bernardino Campi, as the Property of a Private Collector);
Private European Collection

Literature:
M. Tanzi, in: Disegno. Les Dessins italiens du Musée de Rennes, exhibition catalogue, Rennes 1990, p.90;
A. Ghirardi, Per Bernadino Campi ritrattista, in: Quaderni di Palazzo Te, 1, 1994, pp. 79-87, p. 80, fig. 5 (as Bernardino Campi);

M. Marubbi, Bernardino Campi e un nuovo ritratto di Vesansiano Gonzaga, in: Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna. L’Uomo e le Opere, Viadana 1999, pp. 39-50, p. 45, fig. 25;
F. Paliaga, Vincenzo Campi: scene del quotidiano, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2000, p. 214 (as circle of Jacopino del Conte);
F. Frangi, A. Morandotti, Il ritratto in Lombardia; da Moroni a Ceruti, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2002, pp. 82-83, no. 22 (as Bernardino Campi)
The Portrait of a Gentleman with a Dog is a significant addition to Bernardino Campi’s portraiture of the 1550s, during which time he was especially favoured by the Milanese aristocracy. The present painting is characterised by a highly balanced composition and a refinement of palette and technique. It presents three focal points: the sitter’s face, the lively dog on the left and the polychrome marble columns on the right. The size of the canvas and the courtly composition signal the subject’s position of social prestige, however identification of the sitter is hindered by the lack of inscriptions or identifying attributes that might enable comparisons with the descriptions furnished by Bernardino’s biographer, Alessandro Lamo. Despite this however, it may be possible to recognise the subject in another full-length portrait, assigned to Campi’s studio, according to Tanzi, which is conserved in the Louvre and catalogued there as mid-sixteenth century Venetian School (see J. Habert, Calcar au Louvre, in: Hommage à Michel Laclotte. Etudes sur la peinture du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance, Milan-Paris 1994, pp. 357-373, fig. 404).

Bernardino Campi’s refined treatment of the sitter´s long slender hands of almost pearlescent quality, is typical of his oeuvre, as are the highly attentive rendering of the features which are precisely characterised, and the care in describing the introspection of the expression of the sitter. Various other passages of great formal refinement, and in this case, of likely symbolic meaning, should be noted, such as the gold bracelet worn by the subject on his right wrist.

Tanzi believes that this Portrait of a Gentleman is among the highest points of Campi’s portraiture. The biographer Alessandro Lamo, stated that Campi ‘has had so much felicity and facility as a portraitist from life, such as no other painter had in our times, so-much-so that as well as conducting them with great grace of design, by-God he gave them the likeness of life, and a certain air of sweetness that we marveled at. As for his speed, he really surpassed all belief, which is clearly demonstrated by the great quantity of portraits he has made, many of which we must pass over in silence, it being almost impossible to remember and know all of them’ [‘ha avuto tanta felicità e facilità nel far Ritratti dal vivo, quanta abbia mai avuto pittore alcuno a questi nostril tempi, concossiaché oltre ch’egli conduceva con molta grazia e disegno, gli accordava eziandio alla somiglianza del vivo, ed a certa dolcezza d’aria, che ci rendevano maraviglia. Quanto alla prestezza poi egli ha veramente superato ogni credenza, il che manifesta chiaro l’infinità de’ Ritratti, ch’egli ha fatti, buona parte de quali passeremo sotto silenzio, essendo per poco impossibile aver memoria e contezza di tutti.’] (see Discorso intorno alla scoltura, e pittura, dove ragiona della vita, ed opera in molti luoghi, ed a diversi pricipi, e personaggi fatte dall’eccellentissmo, e nobile pittore cremonese M. Bernardino Campo (1584), riedito in appendice a G. B. Zaist, Notizie istoriche de’pittori, scultori, ed architetti cremonesi, Cremona, 1774, ed. anastatica, con indici a cura di A. Puerari, Bergamo, 1976, p. 49).

During the sixteenth century, which was so profoundly marked by war, the prevailing Spanish fashion which defined the male image, was that of the man at arms. In terms of dress code, this meant clothes that followed the form of the armour under which they were to be worn, this was both to facilitate movement and to enhance the protection of the body. The ‘habit’ worn by the sitter of this portrait corresponds to these criteria: it has a high buckled collar, padded shoulders, pleats beneath the waist, long, close fitting sleeves that fit into the couter, and the elongated, pointed, doublet, corresponding to the padding beneath the cuirass.