Gian Cristoforo Romano's bust of Isabella d'Este

Apollo, Feb, 2005 by Timothy Potts

From the director of the Kimbell Art Museum

In your review of new museum acquisitions (APOLLO, December 2004), the description of the terracotta portrait of Isabella d'Este recently acquired by the Kimbell Art Museum (Fig. 1) wrongly states that it 'has never been published, apparently because of doubts about its authenticity'. This was the case only up to 1973, when it was sold by the heirs of the Amsterdam-based, Swiss collector Otto Lanz (d. 1935) to the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection. The termoluminescence test of that year (not so 'recent') to which you refer, confirming the bust's renaissance date, was duly published in the journal Archaeometry. (1) Thereafter it was included in a number of Thyssen-Bornemisza installation catalogues before being published in detail by Anthony Radcliffe in 1992, (2) an account that has formed the basis of subsequent discussion. (3)

As to the 'numerous small losses, especially to the base', these are the result of damage during the sculpture's long history along its most vulnerable edge; 'poor firing' is not to blame. Aside from the removal of the original polychromy (presumably in the nineteenth century), the bust's level of preservation and condition overall is remarkably good.

More open to continuing reassessment are, as usual, the identification of artist and subject. The critical point of reference for the identity of the sitter is Leonardo's famous cartoon (Fig. 2), drawn by him in Mantua in 1499, when Isabella was twenty-five. The close correspondence in profile features of the face, hairstyle and dress to the terracotta bust are clear, and led some early critics to enthusiastic speculation that the latter likewise may be by Leonardo. (4) This was superseded in 1972 by John Pope-Hennessy's more sustainable proposal (in an unpublished letter to Marco Grassi) that the bust be attributed to Gian Cristoforo Romano, the position argued in print with full marshalling of documentary and stylistic evidence by Radcliffe in 1992. This includes the letter

of June 1491 in which Isabella asks her sister Beatrice to allow Gian Cristoforo to come to Mantua specifically to make her portrait; and her later ordering blocks of marble to the sculptor's specifications for this purpose. He eventually resided at her court from 1497 to 1505.

Although no trace of a marble portrait has ever surfaced, Radcliffe plausibly suggests that the present work was a preliminary study made in about 1498, the year Gian Cristoforo also produced a medal of Isabella. All Gian Cristoforo's other securely attributed portraits are of her family and a close associate: her sister Beatrice (marble; Louvre, Paris), her husband Francesco II Gonzaga (terracotta; Palazzo Ducale, Mantua) and her counsellor Girolamo Andreasi (terracotta; Museo Bardini, Florence). Thus the current attribution completes the circle of patronage.

Although doubts or alternative attributions have occasionally been proposed, (5) it is difficult to get past the cumulative plausibility of the Isabella/Gian Cristoforo ascription: the striking resemblance of sitter and dress to Leonardo's cartoon and to her medal portrait of 1498; the similarities in general style and modelling (especially the face) to Gian Cristoforo's other portraits; and the appropriateness of the elaborate hairstyle and dress--Isabella was a renowned trend-setter in fashion--to a north Italian court of around 1500, especially the distinctive puffs of the chemise drawn through slits in the sleeves at the shoulder. Female portraits in terracotta are very rare in this period so the sitter is likely to be a woman of some prominence, and most naturally one with an enthusiasm for the arts. At the very least we can say that if it is Isabella, it should be by her court sculptor Gian Cristoforo; and if it is by Gian Cristoforo, its most likely subject is Isabella. The arguments in favour of each thus reinforce those for the other. Ironically, Isabella's famous vanity, and consequent penchant for portraits unabashedly flattering to her modest physical attributes, may in the end be the subtlest clue to the identity of this extraordinarily beautiful image.

Timothy Potts, The Kimbell Art Museum

(1) S. Fleming and D. Stoneham, 'Thermoluminescent Authenticity Study and Dating of Renaissance Terracottas', Archaeometry, vol. xv, 1973, pp. 242-44, 246, figs 8-9.

(2) In A. Radcliffe, M. Baker and M. Maek-Gerard, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection: Renaissance and Later Sculpture with Works of Art in Bronze, London, 1992, pp. 68-73.

(3) A. Bacchi, Prospero Clemente: Uno scultore manierista nella Raggio del '500, Milan, 2001, pp. 106, 137, no. 172; A. Darr et al., Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Detroit Institute of Arts, London, 2002, vol. 1, p. 240; S. Ferino-Pagden (ed.), Isabella d'Este Furstin und Mazenatin der Renaissance: La prima donna del mondo, exh. cat., Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 1994, pp. 90-91; L. Syson, 'Reading Faces: Gian Cristoforo's Medal of Isabella d'Este', in C. Mozzarelli et al. (eds.), La code di Mantova nell' eta di Andrea Mantegna: 1450-1550, London, 1997, p. 283, no. 12.