Portrait of a Musician

This painting was made with oils on a rather small 44.7 × 32 cm (17.6 × 13 in) walnut wood panel.[9][n 3] Walnut wood was notably a medium which Leonardo favored,[10] recommended,[11] and was not commonly used by other Lombard artists of the time.[11] The work depicts a young man in a bust length, three-quarter position whose his right hand holds a folded musical score of some kind.[12] The man is viewed from slightly above.[13] With exception to the face and hair,[9] it is largely unfinished but in good overall condition overall with only the bottom right corner suffering some damage.[11][2] There is a small amount of retouching, especially towards the back of the head, and the colors seem to have faded over time.[11][14] It is reminiscent of his other portraits from his time in Milan, such as the Lady with an Ermine and La Belle Ferronnière, from their shared black background, while also differing in the angled, rather than profile view.[15]

Detail of the musical score

The man has curly shoulder length hair, wears a red hat on his mostly finished face that intently stares at something outside the viewer's field of vision.[10] The stare is intensified by careful lighting that focuses the attention to his face,[3] especially his large glassy eyes.[13] He wears a tight white undershirt with an unfinished black doublet and only an underpainted brownish-orange stole.[2][15][16] The colors are faded, probably due to minor repainting and poor conservation. Technical examination of the work has revealed that the doublet was probably originally dark red and the stole bright yellow.[9]

The mouth hints at the start of a smile or suggests that perhaps the man is about to sing or has just sung.[17][18] A notable feature of the musician's face is the effect on his eyes from the light outside the frame.[19] The light causes both eyes to be dilated but the left eye to a far greater extent than the right, something that is not humanly possible.[8] Some defend Leonardo, claiming that this is simply for dramatic effect, so the viewer feels a sense of motion from the musician's left to right side of his face.[20] Museum curator Luke Syson notes that "The eyes are perhaps the most striking feature of the Musician, sight given primacy as the noblest sense and the most important tool of the painter".[18]

The stiffly folded piece of paper is held in an odd and delicate manner and is at least one part of a musical score, with musical notes and letters written on it.[2] Due to the poor conservation of the lower part of the painting, the notes and letters are largely illegible.[2][3] This has not stopped some scholars from hypothesizing as to what the letters say, often using their interpretations to support their theory of the musician's identity.[21] The notes have offered little clarity into the painting,[12] other than strongly suggesting the subject to be a musician.[22] The notes are in mensural notation and therefore likely representative of polyphonic music.[16] Drawings from Royal Library of Windsor containing Leonardo's music notational style do not share a resemblance to the music in the painting.[12] This suggests that the music is not by him, which leaves the composer and the significance of the music, unknown.[12]

Portrait of a Lady (c. 1490) by Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis was originally thought to also be by Leonardo and paired with Portrait of a Musician

While once controversial, it is widely agreed by modern scholars that Portrait of a Musician is by Leonardo da Vinci.[23] Although no recording of the commission exists,[10] the attribution is based on a number of stylistic similarities to Leonardo's other works, notably the angel and St. Jerome's face from Virgin of the Rocks and Saint Jerome in the Wilderness.[17][24] The dark background of the portrait, a style popularized by Leonardo, furthers this attribution as it appears in later portraits from his time in Milan, such as Lady with an Ermine and La Belle Ferronnière.[23] The former painting in particular has showed many similarities in style from X-ray testing.[11] Other characteristics typical of Leonardo's style include the melancholic atmosphere, mouth that seems to have just closed or be about to open and curly hair,[9] reminiscent of Ginevra de' Benci.[17] The attribution is furthered by a comparison of the musician's eyes, which dialite to different degrees,[8] and a passage in Leonardo's notes:

The pupil [of the eye] dilates and contracts according to the brightness or darkness of the objects [in its sight]; and since it takes some time to dilate and contract, it cannot see immediately on going out of the light and into the shae, nor, in the same way, out of the sahe and into the light, and this very thing has already deceived me in the painting of an eye, and that is how I learned it.[8]

This suggests that Portrait of a Musician is representative of this observation by Leonardo.[18]

The past controversy over the painting's attribution had stemmed from the rigid and stoicness of the painting,[2] something largely uncharacteristic of Leonardo.[11] While some scholars explained this to be from the painting being unfinished, others proposed that the clothing and torso were done by a student of his, perhaps Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio or Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis.[11] However, art historian Pietro Marani notes that it is unlikely that Leonardo would have had assistants in the mid-1850s and even if he did, they would likely not be assisting on a portrait for an official or personal friend.[25] Despite Marani's points, there is still a substantial minority of scholars that disagree with a full attribution,[9] but it is almost universally agreed that if Leonardo did not create the whole painting, then he at least painted the face.[10]

Strong stylistics similarities to Lady with an Ermine through X-ray testing[11] as well as the treatment of chiaroscuro in Virgin of the Rocks and sketches for a bronze horse sculpture make this painting datable to Leonardo's First Milanese period (c. 1482–99).[24] However, the earliest date given by scholars is 1483.[2] Modern scholars have also noted that it was likely not made much later than 1487,[25] since the work has been seen to lack some of the refinements and realism of his later works, such as Lady with an Ermine;[22] Leonardo would engage in a study of human anatomy, especially the skull, in the late 1480s.[9] The painting is therefore safe to date to the mid–1480s,[22] usually 1483–1487.[n 1]

This is Leonardo's only portrait to remain in Milan, and was catalogued by Pietro Paolo Bosca into the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in 1672.[9] It is possible that the work may have been given to the Ambrosiana as early as 1637 by Galeazzo Arconati but this is mostly speculative.[11] It was listed with a description of "with all elegance that might be expected of a ducal commission,"[n 4] which implies that the subject was thought to be Ludovico Sforza, an employer of Leonardo and the Duke of Milan at the time of the painting's creation.[14][9] The theory was that it was a counterpart to the Portrait of a Lady, now attributed to Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis, but at the time was thought to be a Leonardo portrait of Beatrice d'Este, Ludovico's wife.[26] In 1686, an inventory listed it to be by Bernardino Luini,[11] but this was soon crossed out and corrected to "or rather by Leonardo."[9] In 1796, Portrait of a Musician hung in the Louvre, after being taken by Napoleon Bonaparte; it was attributed to Bernardino Luini.[9] However, after its return to Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan in 1815, it was relisted to be by Leonardo.[27]

These assumptions of the subject as Ludovico was taken without question until a 1904–1905 restoration by Luigi Cavenaghi and Antonio Grandi removed a layer of black paint and revealed a hand holding a musical score.[14] This identification led most scholars to believe the subject as a musician, especially those in Milan at the time,[22] and not Ludovico.[28] Since this discovery, numerous candidates have been proposed as the sitter.[29]

The leading candidate in the 20th century, as suggested by Luca Beltrami in 1906, was Franchinus Gaffurius, a priest, the leading music theorist in Milan,[2][4] court musician for Ludovico Sforza and maestro di cappella of Milan Cathedral.[19] Gaffurius and Leonardo were known to have been friends, both entering the Duke's service only a year or two apart from each other. In fact, Gaffurius' celebrated 1496 music treatise, Practica Musica, contains various woodcuts by Leonardo.[32] Additionally, the letters "Cant" and "Ang" have been deciphered on the sheet music which could be an abbreviation for "Cantum Angelicum." This may be to be in reference to Angelicum ac divinum opus, a music treatise by Gaffurius.[26]

Sforza, Gaffurius, Josquin and Galeazzo. (Left to right, Portrait of a Musician center) have each been proposed as the subject. (Clickable image—use cursor to identify.)

The theory has been disproven because iconographic evidence does not match Gaffurius to the man in Portrait of a Musician.[4] Kemp notes that the letter "Cant" and "Ang" could just as easily be "Cantore Angelico," meaning "angelic singer."[2] Also, the subject of the painting was not depicted in a clerical robe, which would have properly identified him as a priest, and the subject of the painting is a young man; Gaffurius would have been in his mid thirties at the time.[33][34]

Since the publication of Marani's 2000 theory,[7] Atalante Migliorotti, a Tuscan musician, has been the most widely accepted identity of the musician.[19][12] In 1482, Migliarotti and Leonardo left Florence for Milan to serve in the court of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan.[26] The two men were known to be friends,[15] and Leonardo is thought to have taught Migliarotti the lute[35] and lyre.[29] During the painting's conception, Migliarotti would have been in his late teens or early twenties, making him a fitting candidate to be the young man in the painting.[36] Additionally, in a 1482 inventory from the Codex Atlanticus[n 5] Leonardo listed "a portrait of Atalante with his face raised".[19][n 6] This has been thought of by many to have been a study or an early attempt to create Portrait of a Musician.[8][19] The intimate feel of the portrait makes a personal friend as the sitter even more likely.[2]

The only issue with the theory seems to be that the subject's face is not raised, as per the 1482 note.[19] However, Marani notes that while the musician's face is not raised in a literal sense, "the expression seems uplifted, suggesting a singer who has just raised his face from the sheet of music."[8] Therefore, since the widespread rejection of Franchinus Gaffurius as the leading candidate,[22] Migliarotti is now considered the most likely subject.[12][33]

In 1972 the French singer and composer Josquin des Prez was suggested as the subject by the Belgian musicologist, Suzanne Clercx-Lejeune.[37] Josquin worked in the service of the Sforza family during various periods of the 1480s,[38] consequently working at the same time as Leonardo.[39] Clercx-Lejeune proposed that the words on the musical score are the abbreviations "Cont," "Cantuz," and "A Z" of the words "Contratenor," "Cantuz" and "Altuz".[4] She claimed that this meant they were associated with a song with a descending melodic line, such as masses, motets and songs by Josquin.[36][n 7]

This theory has been strongly discredited as the notation in the painting is largely illegible, and many composers of the time were writing music in this manner.[36] Additionally, like Gaffurius, other portraits do not show a resemblance[18] and Josquin was a priest in his mid 30s, so therefore unlikely to be the subject of this painting.[37]

Art historian Laure Fagnart suggested in 2019 that the sitter is Gaspar van Weerbeke, a Netherlandish composer and singer. Gaspar worked for the Sforza family at the same time as Leonardo, and they likely knew each other due to their shared employer. This theory cites letters from Galeazzo Maria Sforza to Gotardo Panigarola concerning the attire of musicians for the court, with one stating, "Gotardo. To Gaspar, our singer, we would like to give a dark velvet robe, such as you have given to the Abbot [Antonio Guinati] and to Cordier, both of them also our singers". As Fagnart points out, this letter is too vague to definitely link Gaspar to the portrait, additionally, Gaspar runs into the same issue as Josquin and Gaffurius, as he would have also been in his 30s and probably too old to be the young man in the painting.[31]

Gian Galeazzo Sforza has been suggested as the sitter, since Leonardo lived with him while in Milan and the vague original description of the portrait being of the Duke of Milan could refer to Galeazzo. Syson notes that this identification would be particularly meaningful as Galeazzo was the rightful heir to throne before Ludovico took power. Not only is there no direct evidence to support this, but the uncovering of the musical score makes this very unlikely as Galéas de Saint-Séverin was not known to be a musician.[18] Francesco Canova da Milano, an Italian lutenist and composer, has been suggested as the subject since he was an important musician also working in Milan when Leonardo was there, however, there is no strong evidence to support this claim.[40] Dutch illustrator Siegfried Woldhek proposed that Portrait of a Musician is one of three self portraits by Leonardo,[41] although this theory is considered highly improbable.[29]