Portrait at The Met Reattributed to Velázquez on artmuseumjournal.com

Conservation/Restoration

Portrait at The Met Reattributed to Velázquez
By STAN PARCHIN
September 18, 2009

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (Spanish, 1599-1660). Portrait of a Man (ca. 1630). Oil on canvas. 68.6 x 55.2 cm (27 x 21 3/4 in.). The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

After months of careful cleaning and expert examination, The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced on September 9, 2009 that its cherished oil on canvas Portrait of a Man (1630) can be firmly reattributed to Spanish painter Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660). No longer considered a product of the Baroque artist's workshop, the rehabilitated image is now ascribed to the master himself.

Director Thomas P. Campbell remarked, “This reattribution to Velázquez of a work that has been in the Metropolitan Museum’s collection for decades is the result of the fine collaborative work of two of the Museum’s renowned experts: Keith Christiansen, the newly named John Pope-Hennessy Chairman of European Paintings, and Michael Gallagher, the Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge of Paintings Conservation.”

Portrait of a Man
The abraded Portrait of an Man, an unfinished bust-length study from life, is that of a gentleman in his mid-thirties. Posed in three-quarter view, the subject dons a black doublet with a stiff white collar. Until their complete removal, earlier restorers' retouches and yellowed varnishes confounded scholars in their attempts to identify the composition's painter. After the portrait's recent cleaning, Jonathan Brown of New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, a leading Velázquez authority, was consulted. The distinguished professor agreed with Christiansen and Gallagher that the quickly painted work is indeed by the hand of the Spanish artist.

The painting, part of the Jules Bache Collection, entered The Met's collection in 1949. It was then labeled erroneously as a self-portrait of Velázquez. Subsequent attempts at determining the sitter's name remain speculative at best.

In Gallery 16 of European Paintings on the museum's second floor, Velázquez Rediscovered (November 17, 2009-February 7, 2010) exhibits Portrait of a Man alongside other works by the Spanish master in the museum's permanent collection. The display provides information about the painting's provenance (ownership history), attributions, cleaning and restoration.

During a recent trip to Madrid, Spain, Tom Campbell expressed an interest in lending The Metropolitan Museum of Art's rediscovered painting by Velázquez to the Museo del Prado.

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