Renaissance masterworks are highly prized by their owners—be they museums or private collectors. It is rare for such paintings to become available for acquisition. One such example, “Portrait of a Young Woman” by Giovanni Battista Moroni (1520/24–1579/80), was recently gifted to The Frick Collection by the trust of the late American software businessman Assadour O. Tavitian. This Moroni is a captivating portrait which, unusual for its day, depicts a woman with a strong personality.
Moroni was a peer of the great Italian Renaissance artists with household names. The first important museum exhibition in the United States of the artist’s portrait paintings was in 2019 at The Frick. One of the greatest Moroni works in this show was “Portrait of a Young Woman,” which was then on loan from Tavitian’s private collection.
Tavitian (1940–2020), born in Bulgaria to Armenian parents, was a prominent philanthropist and celebrated art connoisseur. His art advisor, David Bull, recalls that though Tavitian only began acquiring paintings in 2004, he amassed a collection of around 220 paintings, more than half of which were portraits. Bull explains, “This love of portraits was a reflection of Aso’s deep interest in stories surrounding the human experience, our collective cultural past and defining historic events.”
Moroni has historically been overlooked by scholars and the general public, with his work only being reevaluated in recent years. Reasons for this longstanding exclusion include that Moroni did not travel outside his native Northern Italian region of Lombardy. He lived and worked in the area, particularly in the province of Bergamo (then part of the Venetian Republic), which housed his aristocratic patrons, and his work was not widely dispersed.
Furthermore, Moroni was not included in Giorgio Vasari’s seminal “The Lives of the Artists,” the foundational contemporaneous account of Italian Renaissance art. Vasari, often considered the first art historian, never visited Bergamo and, therefore, did not know Moroni’s work.
Moroni painted mainly religious pictures and portraits. His style is naturalistic with heightened attention to detail and sumptuous colors. It is estimated that there are 125 portraits in total by the artist that survive today, and scholars now view his work as embodying significant innovations. His portraits include examples of narrative compositions, standing women in full-length, and powerful realism which predates the characteristic work in these areas by the respective Baroque artists Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and Velázquez.
‘Portrait of a Young Woman’
“Portrait of a Young Woman” is pristine in terms of quality and condition. It is considered by The Frick to be the “finest example” of the 15 or so paintings of individual females by the artist that are known today. The sitter of this late-career canvas, painted at the height of Moroni’s career, remains unknown, as does the reason for creating a portrait of her.
The work showcases Moroni’s exceptional technical skills in depicting fabric. Clothing in shades of pink and orange-red was fashionable in mid-16th-century Italy, and Moroni was fond of featuring the colors in his work. In “Portrait of a Young Woman,” the sitter’s extravagant pink dress is brocaded (embellished with a raised pattern in metallic thread) in silver-gilt and silver-wound thread and is crowned by a pleated lace collar. The shimmer of the brocade is expressed by white paint loosely applied in fine, slightly rippling lines. Her adornment of a necklace, earring, and headdress—with intricate gold, pearls, and gemstones—reinforces that the woman is of high social standing.
The picture has a closely cropped composition that gives the illusion of immediacy. With her face in semi-profile, the woman’s gaze meets the viewer. However, she remains mysterious and almost modern in her attitude and expression. The Frick describes how “her strong, somewhat confrontational gaze is unconventional in Renaissance portraits of women, which tend to promote a more modest demeanor.”
Tavitian’s philosophy was to pay forward the generosity he encountered along his journey as an immigrant. Now his treasured “Portrait of a Young Woman” has traveled from his Upper East Side townhouse to The Frick. The museum itself was once the home of a Gilded Age industrialist who bequeathed his art collection to the public. This Moroni has found an apt and appreciative permanent home.
