This painting shows a man from the legs up, his body facing slightly to the left but his head turning to look at us. He has pale skin, ruddy cheeks, short, dark hair, a dark, curling mustache, a dark goatee, arched eyebrows, deep-set eyes, and thin lips set in a neutral expression. He wears a dark green smock with a white lace collar, and beneath that a white lacy garment over a dark green robe. He holds a black book in his left hand, and his right hand rests on a table next to him that is draped in red fabric. On the table appears to be a tall white hat with gold detailing. The background is a dark brown-green color.
Read the visual description

This painting shows a man from the legs up, his body facing slightly to the left but his head turning to look at us. He has pale skin, ruddy cheeks, short, dark hair, a dark, curling mustache, a dark goatee, arched eyebrows, deep-set eyes, and thin lips set in a neutral expression. He wears a dark green smock with a white lace collar, and beneath that a white lacy garment over a dark green robe. He holds a black book in his left hand, and his right hand rests on a table next to him that is draped in red fabric. On the table appears to be a tall white hat with gold detailing. The background is a dark brown-green color.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

Bishop Alvise Grimani

Bernardo Strozzi

Date
1633 or after
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 146.7 x 95.1 cm (57 3/4 x 37 7/16 in.) framed: 186.7 x 135.3 x 14.6 cm (73 1/2 x 53 1/4 x 5 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1961.9.41
Credit line
Samuel H. Kress Collection
Time span
1601 to 1650
Department
CIS-B

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • Baroque
  • male
  • portrait
  • Genoese-Venetian
  • Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
  • Grimani, Bishop Alvise
Provenance

Possibly Countess Lauredana Gatterburg-Morosini [d. 1884], Venice; (her sale, Palazzo Morosini, Venice, 15-22 May 1894, no. 635).[1] (Stefano Bardini [1836-1922], Florence); (his sales, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 26-30 May 1902, no. 603, as by Van Dyck, _Portrait of a Cardinal_[2] and American Art Galleries, New York, 23-27 April 1918, 3rd day, no. 465, as Italian School, _Portrait of a Spanish Cardinal_).[3] (E. & A. Silberman Galleries, New York);[4] purchased 1946 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1961 to NGA. [1] The catalogue gives no dimensions, but describes the picture as a "portrait d'un évêque, représenté en pied, de face, grandeur nature, tenant un livre d'heures." Although no inscription is mentioned, this could also be the copy now in Genoa (see note 9). Many of the items in the sale came from the Grimani collection, as the last member of the Grimani family had married a Morosini in the eighteenth century, as noted in the introduction to the catalogue and by Cesare Augusto Levi, _Le collezioni veneziane d'arte e d'antichità dal secolo XIV ai nostri giorni_, Venice, 1900: lv. [2] No. 676 in the French edition of the catalogue. Both catalogues gave incorrect dimensions (187 x 185 cm or 78 x 53 in.). [3] No documentation survives for the provenances of paintings purchased by Bardini; his surviving papers cover only the period 1905-1915. The Grimani portrait does not appear in earlier Bardini sales. Fiorenza Scalia and Cristina De Benedictis, _Il Museo Bardini a Firenze_, Milan, 1984: 65, 79. [4] According to a note from Silberman (NGA curatorial files), the painting was in the Royal Palace, Budapest, until it was sold at auction in 1868; it subsequently passed to Count Ambroszy-Migaszy, Budapest, before being brought to the United States at an unknown date. It has not been possible to locate sales or other catalogues for these collections, and this information remains unverified. [5] According to Fern Rusk Shapley, _Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XVI-XVIII Century_, London, 1973: 88, and Fern Rusk Shapley, _Catalogue of Italian Paintings_, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:136-137, and to notes in NGA curatorial files. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/392.

NGA object ID 46140. 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.