Portrait of a Youth
This vertical portrait painting shows the head, shoulders, and chest of a pale-skinned young man in front a cream-white, stone window that opens onto blue sky. The man’s body is angled slightly to our left and he looks directly at us with wide-set, pale blue eyes. He has smooth skin, a rounded nose, a wide jawline, and full, light pink lips. He wears a brimless crimson-red cap over brown hair that curls over his ears and down to the nape of his neck. His slate-blue jacket is lined with brown, perhaps fur, around the high neck and down the front. The jacket has puffy sleeves and vertical pleats over the chest. He is positioned in front of the stone opening, the edges of which run parallel to top and sides of the composition. Vivid blue sky fills the opening behind the young man.
Details
- Palette
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- Medium
- oil and tempera on panel
- Dimensions
- overall: 52.1 x 36.5 cm (20 1/2 x 14 3/8 in.) framed: 90.8 x 71.8 x 15.2 cm (35 3/4 x 28 1/4 x 6 in.)
- Department
- CIS-R
- Holding institution
- National Gallery of Art
- Image provider
- national-gallery-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Andrew W. Mellon Collection
Art Genome Taxonomy
9 tags
Subject Matter
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Portrait Both · 99%
The museum catalog identifies the work as a portrait, and the image visibly depicts a single young male sitter in a bust-length format.
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Individual Portrait Both · 99%
The composition centers on one sitter whose head and upper body occupy most of the panel.
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Face Visual · 99%
The face is the dominant visual focus, with detailed modeling of the eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, and jaw.
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Eye Contact Visual · 99%
The sitter looks directly outward toward the viewer.
Styles and Movements
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Renaissance Art Interpretive · 82%
The artist attribution and circa 1485 date support a broad Renaissance classification, although the supplied catalog does not provide a movement classification in its styles field.
Visual Qualities
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Bright and Vivid Colors Visual · 88%
The crimson-red cap and blue sky provide notably vivid color accents against the darker garment and pale stone surround.
Medium and Techniques
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Oil Painting Metadata · 95%
The museum catalog specifies oil and tempera on panel; the work is visibly a painted image on a rigid panel support.
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Oil on Panel Metadata · 99%
The catalog explicitly records the medium and support as oil and tempera on panel.
Time Periods
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15th Century Art Metadata · 99%
The work is dated circa 1485, placing it within the fifteenth century.
Source & rights
Filippino Lippi. Portrait of a Youth. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.