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Shown from the knees up, a light-skinned man wearing a loose, ink-black garment with a white collar leans back in a wooden chair in this vertical portrait painting. His body faces our left almost in profile, but he turns his head to look at us from the corners of his light hazel-brown eyes, the eyebrow closer to us slightly cocked. Crow’s feet line the corners of his hooded eyes. He is lit from our right so the side of his face to our left is in shadow. His slightly hollow cheeks are lined between his nose and mouth with wrinkles. His silvery-gray beard is trimmed close to his angled jawline and pointed chin. His gray hair is closely cropped hair under a velvety-black, three-pointed cap. The white collar is trimmed with stripes and a row of delicate dots along the edge. The man leans heavily against his left arm, closer to us, which is stretched along the arm of the chair to nearly span the width of the painting. That hand curls around the terminal of the chair, which is carved with a stylized flower in a disk. He wears a gold ring with a dark blue stone on the pinky of that hand. He marks the spot in a closed book with his other hand, and rests the book in the crook of the elbow draped along the arm of the chair. The book he holds has a sand-brown cover, and is about the size of a thick paperback novel. The crimson-red lining along the back of the chair, to our right, and the cushion on which the man sits is trimmed with rows of fringe of the same color. The background behind the man is deep, sable brown in the corners and lightens to tan around the man’s head.
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Shown from the knees up, a light-skinned man wearing a loose, ink-black garment with a white collar leans back in a wooden chair in this vertical portrait painting. His body faces our left almost in profile, but he turns his head to look at us from the corners of his light hazel-brown eyes, the eyebrow closer to us slightly cocked. Crow’s feet line the corners of his hooded eyes. He is lit from our right so the side of his face to our left is in shadow. His slightly hollow cheeks are lined between his nose and mouth with wrinkles. His silvery-gray beard is trimmed close to his angled jawline and pointed chin. His gray hair is closely cropped hair under a velvety-black, three-pointed cap. The white collar is trimmed with stripes and a row of delicate dots along the edge. The man leans heavily against his left arm, closer to us, which is stretched along the arm of the chair to nearly span the width of the painting. That hand curls around the terminal of the chair, which is carved with a stylized flower in a disk. He wears a gold ring with a dark blue stone on the pinky of that hand. He marks the spot in a closed book with his other hand, and rests the book in the crook of the elbow draped along the arm of the chair. The book he holds has a sand-brown cover, and is about the size of a thick paperback novel. The crimson-red lining along the back of the chair, to our right, and the cushion on which the man sits is trimmed with rows of fringe of the same color. The background behind the man is deep, sable brown in the corners and lightens to tan around the man’s head.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

"Titian's Schoolmaster"

Giovanni Battista Moroni

Date
c. 1575
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 96.8 × 74.3 cm (38 1/8 × 29 1/4 in.) framed: 130.49 × 109.22 × 10.8 cm (51 3/8 × 43 × 4 1/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1942.9.45
Credit line
Widener Collection
Time span
1551 to 1600
Department
CIS-R
Original NGA record Wikidata Print information

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • male
  • portrait
  • Renaissance
  • Italian Paintings of the Sixteenth Century
  • Bergamo
  • Schoolmaster
Provenance

Borghese collection, Rome by c. 1622 until after 1793; purchased 1800 by Robert Fagan [c. 1761-1816], Rome, who sent it to England; sold to William Buchanan [1777-1846], London;[1] Walsh Porter [d. 1809], London; purchased before Porter's death by George Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd marquess of Stafford and 1st duke of Sutherland [1758-1833], Cleveland House, then Stafford House, London;[2] by inheritance to his son, George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd duke of Sutherland [1786-1861], Stafford House; by inheritance to his son, George Granville William Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 3rd duke of Sutherland [1828-1892], Stafford House; by inheritance to his son, Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 4th duke of Sutherland [1851-1913], StaffordHouse; (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris); sold February 1909 to Peter A.B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania;[3] inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park; gift 1942 to NGA. [1] William T. Whitley, _Art in England, 1800-1820_, New York and Cambridge, England, 1928: 11-12. [2] The 1809 "Catalogue and Description of the Pictures belonging to the Marquis of Stafford at Cleveland House" (Staffordshire County Record Office, D593/R/7/5) records the acquisition of the painting by Stafford from Porter, who died in May 1809. See: Peter Humfrey, "The Stafford Gallery at Cleveland House and the 2nd Marquess of Stafford as a Collector," _Journal of the History of Collections_ 28, no. 1 (March 2016): 49, 51 fig. 7, 54 n. 40. [3] In a Duveen Brothers ledger recording sales from 1901 to 1910, under Peter A.B. Widener's name for 12 February 1909, is this entry: "1 painting of a man by Moroni 'Titian's Schoolmaster' ex Sutherland Colection" (Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Series I.A. New York House, 1886-1960, reel 4, box 5, New York Sales 1901-1910, page 182, copy in NGA curatorial files).

NGA object ID 1184. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.