Abstract

The article proposes a new stylistic analysis and attribution of the "Portrait of a Gentleman" of the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin (inv. n. 351). The painting entered the Museum in 1893 with an attribution to Andrea Solario later accepted by Berenson (1907) and Suida (1929). Already in the early twentieth Century, however, the portrait had been from other scholars reported in Tuscany area with an attribution to Girolamo del Pacchia. In 1974 Federico Zeri proposed doubtfully a reference to Antonio del Ceraiolo. The stylistic in6uences of Florentine Classicism of the (rst XVIth Century and in particular of models by Perugino and Raphael and the presence of nordic elements that characterize the portrait suggest an attribution to the painter Niccolò Soggi, born in Monte San Savino (Arezzo) and active mainly between Florence and Arezzo. The naturalistic rendering of the physiognomy, the incisiveness of the drawing and the compactness and smoothness of the pictorial surface are elements common to many of the certain works by Soggi. The dating of the Dublin portrait must be collocated around 1520, at the time of the "Portrait of Baldo Magini" (Prato, Cathedral) which is up to day the only portrait known by Soggi.