Portrait of a Man with a Pink

1500/10

Quentin Massys
Netherlandish, 1466 - 1530

In the early 16th century, Antwerp experienced remarkable growth as a commercial center, and Quentin Massys was one of the most important and innovative of its many painters. In this relatively early and rather damaged portrait, he followed 15th-century tradition by employing an immobile pose, barely allowing his subject’s hands to appear above the sill of the picture frame. Yet Massys developed a distinctive and nuanced manner of modeling the face, which here conveys a strong sense of individual character. The pink, or carnation, held by the sitter could refer to matrimony or to Christ’s incarnation.

On View: European Painting and Sculpture, Gallery 207

Artist: Quentin Massys
Title: Portrait of a Man with a Pink
Origin: Netherlands
Date: 1504–1514
Medium: Oil on panel
Dimensions: 43.8 × 29.2 cm (17 1/4 × 11 1/2 in.) Painted surface: 43.2 × 28.4 cm (17 × 11 3/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of John J. Glessner
Reference Number: 1894.1025

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The Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue Paintings, Sculpture, and Other Objects in the Museum, March 15, 1894, p. 63, no. 157.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of Objects in the Museum, Part I, Sculpture and Painting, 1895, p. 81, no. 157.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of Objects in the Museum, Part I, Sculpture and Painting, 2nd ed., 1896, p. 91, no. 157.
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The Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Paintings, Sculpture, and Other Objects in the Museum, 1914 , p. 112, no. 9 (ill.).
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und Holland von 1400–1600, Berlin, 1924, pp. 202–03.
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Ingvar Bergström, Den symboliska Nejlikan, Malmö, 1958, pp. 101, 104.
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des Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique 22 (1973), pp. 16–17.
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Larry Silver, The Paintings of Quinten Massys with Catalogue Raisonné, Montclair, N.J., 1984, pp. 168–70, 232–33, 238–39, 243, no. 52, pl. 149.
Guy Bauman and Walter A. Liedtke, Flemish Paintings in America: A Survey of Early Netherlandish and Flemish Paintings in the Public Collections of North America, Antwerp, 1992, p. 347 (ill.), no. 313.
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New York, Kleinberger, Loan Exhibition of Flemish Primitives, 1929, no. 48.
Antwerp, Exposition d’art flamand ancien, 1930, no. 197.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, 1933, no. 45.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, 1934, no. 122.
New York, Knoedler, Fifteenth Century Portraits, 1935, no. 16.
New York, Durlacher Brothers, Six Paintings by Quentin Massys, 1936 (no cat.).
Columbus (Ohio) Gallery of Fine Arts, A Concert of Masterpieces, 1939, no. 7.

Possibly Colonna di Sciarra collection, Rome [according to catalogue of the 1881 Beurnonville sale]. Étienne-Edmond Martin, 2nd baron de Beurnonville, Paris; sold, Pillet, Paris, May 9–16, 1881, no. 323, as Holbein, to Brame for 14,000 fr. [according to annotated sale catalogue in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris]. Ernest May, Paris; sold, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, June 4, 1890, no. 106 (engraved), as Holbein, to Durand-Ruel for Charles L. Hutchinson on behalf of the Art Institute for 13,000 fr. [letter of Oct. 7, 1987 from France Daguet of Durand-Ruel in curatorial file; the purchase was supported retroactively by a gift from John J. Glessner; see Art Institute of Chicago 1895].

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