.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Ridolfo Ghirlandaio was the son of Domenico Ghirlandaio, one of the most celebrated painters of the Florentine Renaissance. After his father died, when Ridolfo was just eleven years old, he was apprenticed under his uncle, Davide Ghirlandaio and later Fra Bartolomeo, who greatly influenced his early work. According to Giorgio Vasari, he maintained a close friendship with Raphael, who entrusted him to finish painting a Madonna in Florence when summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II. Raphael attempted to attract Ridolfo to Rome, but he chose to always remain in Florence, where he established a successful career painting altarpieces, frescoes and portraits (see. G. Vasari, Lives of the most eminent painters, sculptors and architects, VIII, London, 1914, p. 61). He led a productive workshop that trained several notable pupils, including Domenico Puligo, Bartolomeo Ghetti, and Michele Tosini, who became known as Michele di Ridolfo.
Ridolfo’s portraiture combines precise drawing and anatomical definition with a psychological investigation of his sitters. Rather than idealizing his subjects, he adopted a physiognomic approach informed by his study of Leonardo da Vinci’s theories and works. This is evident here, particularly in the sitter's face, where the light traces the carefully modelled contours, accentuating the bags under his eyes as he gazes into the distance, seemingly absorbed in his own thought. The sitter was previously said to represent the great philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), and while the portrait does not take a great likeness to the younger portrait Machiavelli by Santi di Tito (Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, inv. no. 9148), perhaps sitter is another public intellectual. Comparable qualities, especially the precise draftsmanship of the facial features, appear in Ridolfo's Portrait of a man in the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA (fig. 1) and in the Portrait of Girolamo Benivieni, attributed to him, in the National Gallery, London.
We are grateful to Carlo Falciani for endorsing the attribution on the basis of photographs (written communication 7 November 2025).
Ridolfo’s portraiture combines precise drawing and anatomical definition with a psychological investigation of his sitters. Rather than idealizing his subjects, he adopted a physiognomic approach informed by his study of Leonardo da Vinci’s theories and works. This is evident here, particularly in the sitter's face, where the light traces the carefully modelled contours, accentuating the bags under his eyes as he gazes into the distance, seemingly absorbed in his own thought. The sitter was previously said to represent the great philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), and while the portrait does not take a great likeness to the younger portrait Machiavelli by Santi di Tito (Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, inv. no. 9148), perhaps sitter is another public intellectual. Comparable qualities, especially the precise draftsmanship of the facial features, appear in Ridolfo's Portrait of a man in the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA (fig. 1) and in the Portrait of Girolamo Benivieni, attributed to him, in the National Gallery, London.
We are grateful to Carlo Falciani for endorsing the attribution on the basis of photographs (written communication 7 November 2025).