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| Portrait of a Boy of Bracciforte Family |
The Bracciforte Boy
by Joan K Yanni
One of the most
visited paintings on the second floor can be found in the Renaissance Room--15th-and
16th-century art. It is the Portrait
of a Boy of the Bracciforte Family (76.13), by Girolamo Mazzoli-Bedoli.
The work, painted
around 1550, is large--63¾x 34¼ inches. It shows a full length figure of a captivating
young boy wearing ivory-colored silk trimmed in gold, and a small-brimmed hat
with the plumes of the aristocratic style of the period. There is a sword at his side and a purse at
his waist. He holds in his right hand a
gold medal showing his family coat of arms--a muscular arm clad in armor and
holding a sword. (Bracciforte means “strong arm” in Italian.) His right arm
rests on a table bearing a flute and a book. Also on the table is a winged
figure holding two long, slender trumpets: the allegorical figure of Fame, a prediction of the boy’s future.
On the right of
the painting, behind the boy, is a Dante chair with a red velvet seat and back,
trimmed with gold fringe. (In the same gallery as the painting is a similar
chair from the MAG collection. Challenge those on your tour to find it. Ours is not as pristine as the one in the
painting, however.) The graceful lines
in the painting, the accents of gold in the buttons, buckle and sword hilt, and
the richly textured fabrics create a picture of elegance. The boy’s face is
finely modeled, with a slightly apprehensive expression. How old do you think
the boy is? Ten? Twelve? Older?
When the work was
acquired by the Gallery in 1976, John Mahey, director at the time, pronounced
it “one of the greatest acquisitions in the Memorial Art Gallery’s history.” He
said that the painting’s significance derived from its “rarity, beauty and
superior quality and its superb state of preservation.” MAG purchased it through the Marion Stratton
Gould Fund from the Wildenstein Gallery in NYC.
It had been in the collection of Myron Taylor, formerly US ambassador to
the Vatican.
When it was
purchased, and for years afterward, the painting was attributed to Nicolo Dell’Abate
(1512-1571), a northern Italian artist from Modena, who later became a painter at
the French court of Henry II and who is credited with introducing the Mannerist
style of painting into France. (Mannerism, which flourished from around
1520-1600, emphasized the human figure, often elongated, and was characterized
by the use of brilliant colors.) Though the portrait is unsigned, the fact that
the Bracciforte family lived in Bologna around 1550 when Dell’abate was working in that area, and
that the portrait is similar to other works by Dell’Abate (for example, the
symbol of fame is used in at least one later painting by the artist) made it
likely that Dell ‘Abate was the painter.
The attribution
changed when Kerry Schauber came to the Gallery in 2007 on a grant to catalog
about 250 works in the non-American collection, chosen by European art curator
Nancy Norwood and the Education department. Her work
included adding
information to the curatorial files and scanning artworks for the MAG website.
Kerry found a
letter from Ian Kennedy of Christie’s Old Masters department in which he noted
that he had seen the
Bracciforte
portrait on a visit to MAG and thought it looked like a Bedoli. More research:
Kerry found an entry in the Grove Dictionary of Art attributing our painting to
Bedoli.
She emailed the
writer of the entry, Prof. David Ekserdjian, of Leicester University in UK, who
insisted that he was correct in his attribution and noted that the MAG painting
had been listed in the 1997 catalogue raisonné of Bedoli’s works. After more
research and discussion--these things are not done quickly--the curatorial
department was convinced and changed the label on our painting to identify the
artist as Bedoli rather than dell’Abate.
Now intrigued by
the painting, Kerry wrote to an Italian authority on coats-of-arms and got a
reply from an actual Bracciforte descendant (yes, they do still exist. Italians
are long-lived!), who said that the arm
holding the sword is indeed the Bracciforte family crest. Thus the
identification of the boy in the painting is correct--something exciting to add
when you and your tours examine the painting.
Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli (1505-1569) was an Italian painter
and draughtsman born in Viadana. He was the principal disciple of Francesco
Mazzola, known as Parmigianino, though he probably received training in the
rudiments of his art in the workshop of Parmigianino’s uncle, Pier’Ilario
Mazzola, whose daughter he married. Bedoli later added Mazzola to his name.
Parmigianino’s art verges on Mannerism (note his Madonna with the Long Neck), and some of Bedoli’s finest work, such
as Virgin and Child with St. Bruno,
now in Munich ,
was attributed to Parmigianino. There is still controversy over the source of some
of their works.
After Parmigianino’s death in 1540, Bedoli became the most
sought-after painter in Parma .
His main activity was the production of altarpieces in Parma , Viadana, Mantua and Pavia , where he completed some frescoes
initially commissioned from Parmigianino. In the 1540s, probably under the
influence of Giulio Romano, his style became more mannered, with strong effects
of chiaroscuro and a marked interest in nocturnal illumination.
Bedoli was more notable for efficiency than for inspiration,
but this probably served him well in areas where he followed Parmigianino, who
was notorious for his inability to complete commissions.
Though only two mythological paintings by Bedoli are known,
he was a productive and gifted portrait painter of local notables. He is known
for charming images of children, as can be seen in MAG’s Bracciforte
painting. His portraits of adults show
considerable psychological insight. The family business was continued into the
17th century by Bedoli’s son, Alessandro Mazzola (1547-1612), who
was noticeably less able than his father.
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