Lombard School

The inscription above the upper margin of the canvas helps to determine that the sitter is aged 50, but does not reveal his identity.

The hunter is portrayed in an interior and the descriptive style of the artist is evident in the minute details on the hunting gear. The gentleman’s left hand, protected by a leather glove, holds a majestic Icelandic gyrfalcon, while from his belt hangs a hunting bag decorated with tassels, a leather cap with a crest and a dagger with a falcon-shaped hilt. The falconer has a whistle around his neck, shaped like a bird of prey with spread wings.

The composition of the painting recalls late 16th century court portraiture, but as Alessandro Morandotti points out, this painting seems more casual due to the intense realism of some features, such as the gentleman’s face and his brawny hand leaning on the table.
The scholar specifies the Lombard origin of the painter, although he cannot give a precise identification. However, there are evident stylistic references to contemporary painters such as Ortensio Crespi, the younger brother of the well-known Giovanni Battista, called Cerano, in artworks such as the Portrait of a Printer (Fig. 1) in the collection of Nivaagaards Malerisamling, Nivaa (Copenhagen).

In the Archbishop’s Palace in Milan, the private chapel of San Carlo Borromeo contains a series of six portraits that have a similar style as the present painting in the lower part of its altar table. Scholars have suggested that the portraits, depicting San Carlo in veneration of the Virgin and six offerors, could be painted around 1602-1603 by Domenico Pellegrini, son of Pellegrino Pellegrini, called Tibaldi. Like the present painting, these portraits in the Archbishops’s private chapel were painted in a way that sheds light on the subject’s imperfections in a naturalistic manner. (Fig. 2)

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