BEHAM, Barthel
(b. 1502, Nürnberg, d. 1540, Italy)

Portrait of a Man

1525-30
Oil on lime panel, 62 x 46 cm
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

This exceptional portrait depicts a heavily built man, already advanced in years, in front of a pale blue sky with patches of white cloud. Neither his tightly fastened dark olive-green gown with its black fur lining and narrow collar, nor his dark-grey doublet with a glimpse of white-frilled shirt cuffs, nor even his black cap, give any indication of his profession. He might be a cleric, or maybe a scholar, but neither interpretation is conclusive. The conjecture that the sitter in the current portrait was a leading figure in spiritual and moral realms has been fed by the work's immediate, petitioning character: the figure towers up before the horizon, which can vaguely be discerned below his shoulder-line, to rise as it were above us. The panel is unable to contain his broad frame at its two sides. The man stands directly before us, front on, his gaze firmly set on the viewer, with none of the relief that might be brought by a slight turn of the head or body.

The painting was formerly attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger, then an anonymous early German painter.