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Portrait of a Man in Armor

Creator

Flemish Artist · 1516–1576

Mor began his career apprenticing to Jan van Scorel in Utrecht; by 1540 he was Van Scorel's assistant. After visiting Italy, Mor had joined Antwerp's Guild of Saint Luke by 1547. Two years later, he was painter to Emperor Charles V's minister. For twenty years Mor traveled among the Habsburg courts--Augsburg, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Rome--painting portraits that became a virtual hall of fame of th

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Date: 1558
Medium: Oil on canvas
Culture: Flemish
Department: Paintings
Institution: Getty Museum

This man's armor reveals some information about him, though his name is unknown. Such a suit was designed for the "foot tourney," a combat in which two men faced one another over a wooden barrier and struck each other with a prescribed number of blows from a pike or sword. The armor was probably made in southern Germany, but officers from Austria, Spain, and parts of Italy would have sought it out. Soldiers always wore their sword on the opposite side of its primary use; thus this man's rapier, hanging from his right side, demonstrates that he is left-handed. The artist may have adopted this three-quarter-length, three-quarter-view format from Titian, who introduced the composition in military portraits in the 1530s. As court painter to King Philip II of Spain, Mor painted many such portraits of members of the Spanish court and the Habsburg family. Mor's new style of portraiture combined austerity and formal poses with insight into his sitters' characters, conveying their humanity along with their importance.

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