Artwork
Portrait of a Man
Portrait of a Man is an oil painting. It dates from 1600 and is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
Its meaning is tied to the representation of a single male subject within the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection.
The painting presents a male sitter as its central figure, identified in the documentary record solely as "a man." No additional iconographic attributes or symbolic elements are recorded; the work functions as a straightforward portrait documenting the appearance and status of an unnamed individual. Its meaning is tied to the representation of a single male subject within the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection.
Technique & Style
The work is an early-17th-century oil painting executed on a wooden panel. Created circa 1600, it measures approximately 20.6 cm by 15.6 cm and portrays a single male sitter in a conventional portrait format. The medium is oil paint applied to a panel support, a technique typical of Netherlandish portraiture of the period.
Its formal qualities consist of a relatively small, tightly composed image that emphasizes the sitter's presence through modest scale and direct, frontal presentation.
History & Provenance
The painting is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where it carries the accession number 14.40.613, having entered the collection through the Benjamin Altman bequest of 1914. Further details of its earlier ownership and exhibition history are not recorded in the available sources.
Legacy
The 1600 oil portrait attributed to an anonymous Netherlandish master, housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is frequently cited in scholarship as a representative example of early Dutch portraiture, shaping scholarly understanding of the period's realism and compositional techniques; its inclusion in a major public collection has reinforced its reputation as a key work for studying anonymous portraiture and has influenced subsequent attributions within the corpus of Northern European art.
Overview
This oil painting, titled Portrait of a Man, presents a bust-length depiction of an unidentified male figure. He is characterized by light brown hair and a short beard, dressed in dark attire with a distinctive white collar and a black hat bearing a small white "B." The subject's calm, direct gaze engages the viewer, set against a dark green oval background within a wooden frame.
Artist & collection
