The Galerie du Temps at the Louvre-Lens A unique presentation of ...

8. Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (1478-1529) by Raffaello Santi,
known as Raphaël (1483-1520)
H. 82 cm. ; W. 67 cm.
Musée du Louvre, Department of Paintings, INV 611
© 2007 Musée du Louvre / Angèle Dequier
Term of loan for display at the Louvre - Lens : 1 year
The elegance and discretion of the dress, the intense but simple
and natural presence of the model make this image of
Castiglione, a friend of the artist and author of The Courtier
(published 1528), the prime portrait of the accomplished
gentleman and perfect courtier described in the book. This
painting was probably executed in Rome in 1514–1515, on the
occasion of Castiglione's appointment as ambassador to the pope
by the Duke of Urbino.
Baldassare Castiglione
The portrait's subject is Baldassare Castiglione (1478–1529), poet, humanist, and ambassador, whom Raphael
first met as a young man in Urbino. Famous for writing The Courtier, published in 1528 and dedicated to
describing the ideal man of the court, Castiglione found a friend in Raphael, both men sharing the same ideas
regarding beauty and harmony.
The courtier incarnate
This mutual affinity is perfectly expressed in Raphael's astonishingly simple and natural portrait, painted no
doubt in accordance with the intentions of its model. Castiglione is depicted in a costume of remarkable
elegance and discretion, in line with his concept of the accomplished gentleman. The ambassador's hair is
wrapped in a turban over which sits a beret with a notched edge adorned with a medallion; his sober doublet is
trimmed on the front and upper sleeves in gray squirrel fur laced with black ribbon; under it, a bloused white
shirt. This winter dress suggests that the portrait was painted during the winter of 1514–1515 when Castiglione,
appointed by the Duke of Urbino to Pope Leo X, was in Rome. Raphael had been working there since 1508.
The sober harmony of the costume, limited to shades of black, gray and white, is extended in the painting's
background of a light and warm gray-beige tone, bathed in diffused light into which the model's shadow gently
fades on the right. The composition is bordered, as in the case of Raphael's other paintings, by a narrow black
band, deliberately cutting the image off at the hands and focusing the viewer's attention on the face and the
intense gaze.
A natural portrait
Castiglione is shown in three-quarter profile from the waist up, seated in an armchair merely suggested in the
lower right, hands folded and his gaze fixed on the viewer; this posture, as well as the soft luminescence that
envelopes the portrait, are a subtle homage to the Mona Lisa. It is certain that Raphael saw the painting during
Leonardo's stay in Rome before the latter left for France. But the respective atmospheres of the two works, and
no doubt the ambitions of the men who painted them, are markedly different. Referring to this portrait in a Latin
elegy dedicated to his wife, Castiglione himself made mention of the uncanny resemblance and the feeling of
human presence it emits. Above all, it is the naturalness— the immediacy, freedom of carriage, and expressive
vivacity— which make this life-like portrait so extraordinarily modern.
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