''Portrait of an Actor'' (; ; ) is a painting by Domenico Fetti in the :en:Hermitage Museum, Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was probably painted in 1621 or 1622 in Mantua, Italy. The sitter, who is holding a theatre mask, is believed to be a ''commedia dell'arte'' actor, either Tristano Martinelli or Francesco Andreini."Portrait of an Actor (Tristano Martinelli or Francesco Andreini ?)"
archived from the original on 14 January 2015, retrieved 21 April 2016, originally at the Hermitage Museum website. There is a well known copy of the portrait by an unidentified artist in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.

Provenance

The first record of Fetti's portrait is a 1653 inventory of Cardinal Mazarin's collection at the Palais Mazarin in Paris, where it is described as "Harlequin, sur toile, par Fety [Harlequin, on canvas, by Fetti]". An inventory drawn up after the Cardinal's death in 1661 lists it as item 1266: "Un autre faict par Fety (1), sur toile, représentant ''Harlequin, comédien, tenant un masque'' [Another work by Fetti (1), representing ''Harlequin, actor, holding a mask'']". The painting was later in the collection of Pierre Crozat and reproduced as ''Portrait de Comédien'', an engraving by in the ''Recueil Crozat'' (1729), where it is noted that the actor had been in the service of the Duke of Mantua. It is also mentioned in an inventory made after Crozat's death in 1740 and was inherited by Crozat's nephew, Louis-Antoine Crozat. It was described in a 1755 inventory as a portrait of a "Comédien la tête découverte, tenant un masque d'Arlequin; par le Feti [Actor, head uncovered, holding a Harlequin mask; by Fetti]". After the death of Louis-Antoine Crozat, it was sold by his heir in 1772 to Catherine II of Russia and is mentioned as being in the collection of the Hermitage Museum beginning in 1774.

Identification of the sitter

Since the late 19th century, the identity of the sitter in Fetti's ''Portrait of an Actor'' has been a subject of much interest and disagreement. Among the portraits painted by Fetti during his stay at the House of Gonzaga, Gonzaga court of Mantua (1614–1622), few have been identified with certainty, but none of the others have engendered as much attention as this one. Pamela Askew explains: "The reason undoubtedly lies in its impressive power of characterisation and execution. In many respects [it is] the grandest and most penetrating of Fetti's portraits."Askew 1978, p. 59.

Former attributions

Eduard Safarik, author of a 1990 monograph on Fetti, lists five persons previously proposed by others as the subject of Fetti's painting: the actors Francesco Gabrielli, Giovanni Gabrielli (actor), Giovanni Gabrielli, Giovanni Battista Andreini, and Tristano Martinelli, and the composer Claudio Monteverdi. Of these, apart from Martinelli, only two, Giovanni Gabrielli and Monteverdi gained wide currency.

Giovanni Gabrielli

Brüiningk and Somoff, editors of the 1891 catalogue of the Hermitage Museum's Gallery of Paintings, identified the subject of Fetti's portrait as the Italian ''commedia dell'arte'' actor Giovanni Gabrielli, whom they equated with the much younger subject in Annibale Carracci's ''Portrait of a Lute Player'' (). The three-way correlation of Fetti's ''Actor'' and Annibale's ''Lute Player'' with Agostino Carracci's engraved ''Giovanni Gabrielli'' () was traced by Denis Mahon, who questioned it in 1947. The errors were compounded in 1962, when Henner Menz, director of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden Gallery, where Annibale's painting is located, gave it the title ''Portrait of the Lute-player Giovanni Gabrielle'' and described it as a "picture of a musician", leading to a confusion of the actor with the similarly named Venetian composer Giovanni Gabrieli. These misidentifications lingered, despite Posner's outright rejection of them in 1971, when he named the subject of the ''Lute Player'' as a member of the Mascheroni family of Bologna, based on Carlo Cesare Malvasia's description of the sitter in his 1678 book ''Felsina Pittrice''. For example, the popular book, ''Five Centuries of Music In Venice'' by H. C. Robbins Landon and John Julius Norwich, published in English, Italian, French, and Japanese, as a companion to the five-part television series ''Maestro'', included a full-page color plate of the ''Lute Player'' as a portrait of Gabrieli the composer in 1991. In 1978 Askew strongly supported Posner's identification of the sitter as a member of the Mascheroni family, and more recently the Dresden gallery identified the sitter as Giulio Mascheroni of Bologna. File:Portrait de Comédien, etching and engraving after Domenico Fetti - Gallica 2011 (cropped, adjusted).jpg, Engraving after Fetti, from the ''Recueil Crozat'', 1729 File:Giovanni Gabrielli, engraved portrait by Agostino Carracci - Art Gallery NSW.jpg, Giovanni Gabrielli (actor), Giovanni Gabrielli, , by Agostino Carracci File:Portrait of a Lute Player by Annibale Carracci - Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden.jpg, ''Portrait of a Lute Player'' by Annibale Carracci, (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden)

Claudio Monteverdi

De Logu suggested the Italian composer :en:Claudio Monteverdi, Claudio Monteverdi in 1967. However, this attribution has also been rejected.Askew 1978; Stevens 1994; Schuetze 2005, pp. 167–168. Stevens and Schuetze cite De Logu (1967, Monteverdi) and Askew (1978, Martinelli), but overlook Safarik (1990, Andreini). File:Portrait of an Actor, copy after Fetti, detail - Robbins-Landon 1991 p60.jpg, Detail from a copy of Fetti’s ''Actor'' (Gallerie dell'Accademia, Accademia, Venice) File:Claudio Monteverdi, engraved portrait from 'Fiori poetici' 1644 - Beinecke Rare Book Library (adjusted).jpg, Portrait of Monteverdi from the title page of ''Fiori poetici'', 1644 File:Claudio Monteverdi 4.jpg, Detail from a portrait of Monteverdi by Bernardo Strozzi, Strozzi,

Current attributions

Tristano Martinelli

Askew first suggested Tristano Martinelli in 1954 and published a detailed analysis in ''The Burlington Magazine'' in 1978. Martinelli, probably the first actor to use the name Harlequin for the masked ''secondo zanni'' role, and the most famous Harlequin up to the time of his death in 1630, commissioned numerous dramatic portraits of himself, three of which he sent to France when he was wanting to return to that country in 1626. One may have been Fetti's portrait, later acquired by Mazarin. The association of the name Martinelli with the portrait was first documented in 1912, when a copy in pastel, attributed to Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Fragonard (1732–1806), was sold in Paris as ''Portrait de l'auteur et acteur Martinelli''.Askew 1978, p. 64.

Francesco Andreini

The Fetti scholar Eduard Safarik proposed the Italian actor Francesco Andreini as the subject of Fetti's portrait in 1990. Andreini began his career as the ''innamorato'' (male lover) and later became famous in the role of Capitano Spavento da Vall'Inferna. He also sometimes played the Sicilian Il Dottore, Doctor, the shepherd Corinto, and the necromancer Falsirone. Safarik's attribution is based on a comparison of Fetti's portrait (and a drawing, presumably a study for the portrait) to the frontispiece of Andreini's ''Le Bravure di Capitano Spavento'', engraved by Abraham Tummerman and first published in 1609 in Venice.Safarik 1990, pp. 284–287, cited b
Sotheby's
The Hermitage painting was shown with the title ''Portrait of Fancesco Andreini'' at a 1996 exhibit (organized by Safarik) at the Palazzo Te in Mantua. File:Portrait of an Actor - Domenico Fetti - Hermitage ГЭ-153, detail.jpg, Detail of the portrait (Hermitage Museum) File:Portrait of an Actor, drawing - Domenico Fetti - Sotheby's 24 January 2007 lot 37.jpg, Drawing for the portrait (sold by Sotheby's) File:Francesco Andreini, engraved portrait from Le Bravure del Capitano Spavento 1607 - Bavarian State Library photo1 (adjusted).jpg, Frontispiece to Francesco Andreini's ''Le Bravure di Capitano Spavento'', 1607 File:Portrait of Francesco Andreini in the costume of Capitano Spavento, at Viilandry - Fondazione Federico Zeri 112346 (detail).jpg, Detail of ''Portrait of Francesco Andreini as Il Capitano, Capitano Spavento'', File:Portrait of Francesco Andreini in the costume of Capitano Spavento - Ferrone 2014 fig4.jpg, ''Portrait of Francesco Andreini as Il Capitano, Capitano Spavento''

Museum attributions

In 2015 the curators of the Hermitage Museum identified the subject of Fetti's painting as either Tristano Martinelli or Francesco Andreini, but these attributions were subsequently removed. The British Museum, which has a print of the engraving from the ''Recueil Crozat'' (1729), identified the subject as Francesco Andreini."Portrait de comédien (Portrait of Francesco Andreini, after Fetti), etching and engraving"
The British Museum, retrieved 1 June 2022
Archived copy (28 January 2015)
The print was made by Nicolas de Larmessin.

Notes

Bibliography

* Aikema, Bernard (1997). "Fetti. Mantua" (review of an exhibition held in 1996 in Mantua), ''The Burlington Magazine'', vol. 139, no. 1127 (February), pp. 142–144. . * Askew, Pamela (1954). "Domenico Fetti", thesis presented at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. . * Askew, Pamela (1978). "Fetti's 'Portrait of an Actor' Reconsidered", ''The Burlington Magazine'', vol. 120, no. 899 (February), pp. 59–65. . * Aumale, Henri d'Orléans, Duke of (1861). ''Inventaire de tous les meubles du Cardinal Mazarin. Dressé en 1653, et publié d'après l'original, conserve dans les Archives de Condé''. London: Whittingham & Wilkins
Copy
at Google Books. * Baschet, Armand (1882). ''Les comédiens italiens à la cour de France sous Charles IX, Henri III, Henri IV et Louis XIII''. Paris: Plon
View
at Google Books. * British Museum
"Portrait de comédien (Portrait of Francesco Andreini, after Fetti), etching and engraving"
at the British Museum website, accessed 29 January 2015. * Brüiningk, E.; Somoff, A. (1891). ''Ermitage Impérial. Catalogue de la Galerie des Tableuux. I. Les écoles d'Italie et d'Espagne'', third edition. Saint Petersburg: Imprimerie de la Cour Impériale
Copy
at Gallica. * Cosnac, Gabriel-Jules, comte de (1884). ''Les richesses du Palais Mazarin''. Paris: Librairie Renouard
1884 edition
at Gallica
1885 edition
at Google Books. * De Logu, Giuseppe (1967). "An unknown Portrait of Monteverdi by Domenico Feti", ''The Burlington Magazine'', vol. 109, no. 777 (December), pp. 706–709. . * Duchartre, Pierre-Louis (1929; reprint 1966). ''The Italian Comedy'', translated by Randolph T. Weaver. London: George G. Harrap (1929). . New York: Dover (1966). . * Hermitage Museum
"Fetti, Domenico – Portrait of an Actor (Tristano Martinelli or Francesco Andreini ?)"
at the Hermitage Museum website, accessed 29 January 2015. * Katritzky, M. A. (2006). ''The Art of Commedia: A Study in the Commedia Dell'Arte 1560-1620 with Special Reference to the Visual Records''. Amsterdam: Rodopi. . * La Curne de Sainte-Palaye, Jean-Baptiste de (1755). ''Catalogue des tableaux du cabinet de M. Crozat, baron de Thiers''. Paris: de Bure aîné
Copy
at Gallica. * Landon, H. C. Robbins; Norwich, John Julius (1991). ''Five Centuries of Music in Venice''. London: Thames and Hudson.
Listings
at WorldCat. * Lehmann, Jürgen M. (1967). ''Domenico Fetti. Leben und Werk des römischen Malers'', thesis (doctoral), Frankfurt a. M. . * Mahon, Denis (1947; reprint 1971). ''Studies in Seicento Art and Theory''. London: Warburg Institute, University of London (1947). . Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood (1971). . * Malvasia, Carlo Cesare (1678). ''Felsina Pittrice. Vite de pittori bolognesi'', 2 volumes. Bologna: Domenico Barbieri
Digitized versions
at HathiTrust of copies from the Getty Research Institute. * Menz, Henner (1962). ''The Dresden Gallery'', translated from the German by Daphne Woodward. New York: Harry N. Abrams. . * Posner, Donald (1971). ''Annibale Carracci: A Study in the Reform of Italian Painting Around 1590'', 2 volumes. New York: Phaidon. . * Possenti, E. (1964). "Gli attori del teatro di prosa, in ''Il museo teatrale alla Scala'', edited by Giampiero Tintori. Milan: Edizioni del Museo Teatrale alla Scala. . * ''Recueil d'estampes'' (1729, 1742). Full title: ''Recueil d'estampes d'après les plus beaux tableaux et d'après les plus beaux dessins, qui sont en France dans le cabinet du Roy, dans celuy de Mgr le Duc d'Orléans, & dans d'autres cabinets, divisé suivant les différentes écoles, avec un abbrégé de la vie des peintres et une description historique de chaque tableau''. Paris: Imprimerie royale
vol. 1, part 1 (1729)vol. 1, part 2 (1729)
an
vol. 2 (1742)
at Gallica. * Richards, Kenneth; Richards, Laura (1990). ''The Commedia Dell'Arte: A Documentary History''. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. . * Safarik, Eduard A. (1990). ''Fetti''. Milan: Electa. . * Safarik, Eduard A. (1996). ''Domenico Fetti 1588/89–1623'' (catalog for an exhibition in Mantua, 15 September – 15 December 1996, edited by Electa, curated by Eduard Safarik). Milan: Electa. . * Savoia, Francesca (2008). "Francesco Andreini", pp. 9–15 in ''Seventeenth-Century Italian Poets and Dramatists. Dictionary of Literary Biography'', volume 339, edited by Albert N. Mancini and Glenn Palen Pierce. Detroit: Gale Cengage Learning. . * Schuetze, George C. (2005). ''Convergences in Music & Art: A Bibliographic Study''. Warren, Michigan: Harmonie Park Press. . * Smith, Winifred (1930). ''Italian Actors of the Renaissance''. New York: Coward-McCann. . * Somof, Andrej Ivanov (1899). ''Ermitage Impérial. Catalogue de la Galerie des Tableuux. I. Les écoles d'Italie et d'Espagne''. Saint Petersburg: Compagnie d'Imprimerie artistique.
1909 edition (Imprimerie A. Böhnke)
at Gallica. * Sotheby's (2007)

accessed 29 January 2015. * Stevens, Denis (1994). "Martinelli, Not Monteverdi", ''Early Music'', vol. 22, no. 1, Monteverdi II (February), pp. 185–186. . * Stuffmann, Margaret (1968). ''Les tableaux de la collection de Pierre Crozat'', Paris: Gazette des Beaux-Arts. .

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Portrait of an Actor 1620 paintings 17th-century portraits Crozat collection Paintings in the Hermitage Museum Prints and drawings in the British Museum category:Paintings by Domenico Fetti Portraits by Italian artists Portraits of men Works about actors