''Portrait of a Young Man'' is an oil on panel painting by

Parmigianino Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (11 January 150324 August 1540), also known as Francesco Mazzola or, more commonly, as Parmigianino (, , ; "the little one from Parma"), was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, Bo ...

, executed ''c.'' 1530, now in the

Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery (; it, Galleria degli Uffizi, italic=no, ) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums ...

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

, whose collection it entered on 27 October 1682. Three copies survive in the

Museo di Capodimonte Museo di Capodimonte is an art museum located in the Palace of Capodimonte, a grand Bourbon palazzo in Naples, Italy. The museum is the prime repository of Neapolitan painting and decorative art, with several important works from other Italia ...

(n. 201), Rome's

Accademia di San Luca The Accademia di San Luca (the "Academy of Saint Luke") is an Italian academy of artists in Rome. The establishment of the Accademia de i Pittori e Scultori di Roma was approved by papal brief in 1577, and in 1593 Federico Zuccari became its fir ...

and the Galleria nazionale di Parma (n. 313, inscribed with the date "MDXX", which is probably also the date of the Uffizi work). It has traditionally been identified as a self-portrait, as recorded by an inscription on the reverse. That identification was still current when it appeared in the 1773 ''Serie degli uomini più illustri nella pittura''. It was in Florence at least by the time of

Cosimo III Cosimo III de' Medici (14 August 1642 – 31 October 1723) was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1670 until his death in 1723, the sixth and penultimate from the House of Medici. He reigned from 1670 to 1723, and was the elder son of Grand Duke Ferdinan ...

and possibly earlier. Later art historians from Ghidiglia Quintavalle and Fagiolo dell'Arco onwards dismissed this identification, particularly since the subject's face does not match more securely-identified self-portraits of the artist such as ''

Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror ''Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror'' (c. 1524) is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance artist Parmigianino. It is housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. History The work is mentioned by Late Renaissance art biographer G ...

'' (

Kunsthistorisches Museum The Kunsthistorisches Museum ( "Museum of Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal do ...

). It may instead be a Parmigianino portrait of Bonifacio Gozzadino mentioned by

Vasari Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work ''The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculpt ...

, or perhaps one of an "unknown Bolognese count", but there is no definite evidence for either identification. More recently Freedberg (1950) and P. Rossi (1980) have argued in favour of the inscription's authenticity. They compare the painting with drawings which are probable self-portraits, particularly n. 790A in the

Devonshire Collection Chatsworth House is a stately home in the Derbyshire Dales, north-east of Bakewell and west of Chesterfield, England. The seat of the Duke of Devonshire, it has belonged to the Cavendish family since 1549. It stands on the east bank of the Ri ...

Chatsworth House Chatsworth House is a stately home in the Derbyshire Dales, north-east of Bakewell and west of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, Chesterfield, England. The seat of the Duke of Devonshire, it has belonged to the House of Cavendish, Cavendish family sin ...

(''Self-Portrait and Study for the Frescoes at La Steccata''), n. 2623 in the

Albertina The Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt (First District) of Vienna, Austria. It houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and approximately 1 million old master prints, as well ...

in Vienna (probably the source for the print of ''Vita di Francesco Mazzuoli'' by Vasari) and catalogue number 1858-7-24-6 in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

(showing a man with a dog and with an inscription by Popham interpreting it as a self-portrait). They also refer to a late sixteenth century collection in a Parma private collection whose inscription refers to the painter.

References

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Man A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromos ...

1530 paintings

Paintings in the collection of the Uffizi