Maso da San Friano
When?
For a moment, I thought I might have been him.
- Artist
- Maso da San Friano
- Work
- Portrait of a Gentleman
- Date
- 1562
The encounter
An impossible recognition.
Andrea’s perspective
When I first saw this portrait, the resemblance was almost unsettling. It was not simply the feeling that I had met this man before. For a moment, I thought that the man might once have been me.
The question was not who. It was when. In what time? In what space? None of this, of course, belongs to art history. It belongs entirely to me. But that sensation was the reason I wanted the painting in the collection.
The painting
The other man.
The accompanying catalogue presents the work as a portrait by Maso da San Friano, the Florentine painter Tommaso Manzuoli (1531–1571). It describes a soberly dressed gentleman with one hand at his waist and a gold ring set with a sapphire. The pose has an official character. The catalogue also draws attention to the inward, reflective quality of Maso’s portraiture. To me, that is what makes this man feel present. Not modern. Present.
“The question was not who. It was when.”
An identification proposed
Twenty-nine.
The catalogue reads the inscription as the sitter’s age, twenty-nine, and the year 1562. It uses that conjunction to propose a possible identity: Giulio di Alessandro de’ Medici. The argument connects the date with Giulio’s appointment to the Order of Santo Stefano. This remains the catalogue’s hypothesis, not an established identification.
The documented work
Artwork
& sources.
Identity
- Artist
- Maso da San Friano (Tommaso Manzuoli), Florence 1531–1571
- Title
- Portrait of a Gentleman
- Possible sitter
- Possibly Giulio di Alessandro de’ Medici; identification proposed in the catalogue
- Date
- 1562, as catalogued
- Medium
- Oil on panel
- Dimensions
- 117 × 86.5 cm
Provenance
Milan, Finarte, May 1997
Milan, private collection
Literature
Supplied printed Salamon catalogue: introductory record; critical text on pp. 56 and 58; accompanying bibliography. Full publication details are not supplied.
Sources & attribution notes
Artist, date, medium, dimensions, provenance and proposed sitter follow the supplied catalogue. The personal account is the collector’s. The inscription is not transcribed here because the photographed heading and the essay give different readings.