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Portrait of a Man with a High Hat by http://www.wikidata.org/.well-known/genid/0f77758731cf7a195785e40045935272

http://www.wikidata.org/.well-known/genid/0f77758731cf7a195785e40045935272 · 1570-01-01

This is *Portrait of a Man with a High Hat*, painted around 1570 by an anonymous artist working in the Elizabethan tradition. The most interesting thing about it is a literal hole in the story: a real diamond, once set into the sitter's hat jewel, was pried out of the paint at some unknown moment.

Look at the elaborate ornament pinned to his tall black hat. The dark socket where a gem should catch the light is the scar. It's a rare, physical record of someone treating the painted surface not as an image but as a treasure, and then defacing it. Around it, the painter's technical gifts are still on display: the voluminous white lace ruff, the careful modeling of a pale forehead against a stark, featureless background.

We don't know who the sitter was, or who painted him. What we do know is that the portrait cost enough to include a real jewel, and that someone later decided that jewel was worth more off the canvas than on it. The work now lives without a name and without its diamond, a strange little scandal of theft and time, preserved in oil paint.

Details

The hat alone tells you he had money. Look at the jewel.
The hat alone tells you he had money. Look at the jewel.
A 16th-century sitter, stripped of his status symbol.
A 16th-century sitter, stripped of his status symbol.
He still commands the room. Even without the diamond.
He still commands the room. Even without the diamond.
The voluminous ruff frames the face like a halo; its intricate lacework demonstrates the painter's technical skill in rendering delicate textile patterns.
The voluminous ruff frames the face like a halo; its intricate lacework demonstrates the painter's technical skill in rendering delicate textile patterns.
The hat's exaggerated height is a 1570s fashion marker identifying the sitter's aspirational or actual elite status; its silhouette dominates the upper composition.
The hat's exaggerated height is a 1570s fashion marker identifying the sitter's aspirational or actual elite status; its silhouette dominates the upper composition.
Transcript

A man in a high hat. Serious, wealthy, someone of standing. The hat alone tells you he had money. Look at the jewel. But this ornament was once a real diamond, set in gold. Someone prized it out of the paint. Left a scar in the darkness. A 16th-century sitter, stripped of his status symbol. He still commands the room. Even without the diamond.