Portrait of a Man with a Pink (1500–10): Artwork and History

Portrait of a Man with a Pink (1500–10) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Quentin Massys (Netherlandish, 1466-1530).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

In this portrait from relatively early in his career, Quentin Massys followed stylistic conventions that appealed to Antwerp’s growing market of patrons while also exhibiting the bold innovations that ultimately made him one of city’s most influential painters. The sitter appears frozen in a somewhat unnatural pose, as was the fashion for half-length portraits at the time, and the positioning of his left hand on the painting’s lower edge recalls the spatial illusionism found in portraits by Netherlandish artists of the previous generation. However, the subtle modeling of the face conveys a strong sense of the sitter’s individual character at a time when such works tended to idealize their subjects. The pink, or carnation, held by the sitter could symbolize marriage or Jesus Christ’s incarnation.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of a Man with a Pink
• Date: 1500–10
• Artist attribution: Quentin Massys (Netherlandish, 1466-1530)
• Place of origin: Netherlands
• Medium: Oil on panel
• Dimensions: 43.8 × 29.2 cm (17 1/4 × 11 1/2 in.); Framed: 51.8 × 36.9 × 4.5 cm (20 3/8 × 14 1/2 × 1 3/4 in.)
• Type: Painting
• Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe
• Reference number: 1894.1025

Collection credit

Gift of John J. Glessner

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.