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Portrait of a Man with a Pink

Creator

Artist · 1469–1525

Much is known about Michael Sittow's peripatetic career painting for princely patrons, but few securely attributed paintings survive. A painter's son, Sittow was in his third year of apprenticeship in Bruges by 1486. In 1492 he was in Spain working as court painter to Queen Isabella. Although he remained in Isabella's service until her death in 1504, he had left Spain by late 1502. He then spent s

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Date: about 1500
Medium: Oil on panel
Culture: Netherlandish
Department: Paintings
Institution: Getty Museum

This man holds the pink very conspicuously, yet its significance in the portrait remains mysterious. The flower was originally named for its bloom shape and time of flowering, at the end of May, around Pentecost, known in the Netherlands as "Pinkster." Presumably, the petals' serrated edges were seen as resembling the tongues of flame that descended on Mary and the Apostles at Pentecost, enabling them to speak in any language, spread God's word, and build the Church. Additionally, "pinksten" meant "fiftieth" in German, and Pentecost was celebrated fifty days after Easter. The portrait has been greatly damaged, but the face and the flower display Michael Sittow's sensitivity to the effects of texture and light. To create his characteristically luminous surfaces, Sittow applied many layers of translucent paint. The sitter's projection of melancholy also typifies Sittow's portraits.

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