Portrait of a Collector

The man holds a richly made prayer book, but his eyes look slightly past us. On the table lie coins and a small bronze figure. A fragment of sculpted relief appears behind him. Each object helps describe the interests of someone whose name is still unknown. Parmigianino, an Italian painter from Parma, made this portrait around 1523. Collecting ancient coins and sculpture was one way to demonstrate learning and cultivated taste. The devotional book gives those interests a Christian companion. The volume can be identified as the Durazzo Book of Hours, made by Francesco Marmitta about twenty years earlier. A book of hours contained prayers for different times of day. Its presence here makes the sitter’s act of possession unusually specific. Notice the light on the relief and the landscape beyond the window, then the dark clothing around the face. Earlier attempts to name this man as a priest or a particular patron have not held. His objects provide firmer clues to his world than guesses about his expression.