Portrait of an Old Man
late fifteenth century
Medium
Charcoal, with wet brush and stumping, on tan laid paper prepared with a gray ground
Dimensions
27.5 × 21.9 cm (10 7/8 × 8 5/8 in.)
Classification
drawings (visual works)
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
202142
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This moving portrait of an old man was made in northern Italy probably in the last decade of the 1400s and is the oldest drawing in the Gray collection. The man’s highly realistic unshaven chin, wrinkled flesh, sunken cheeks and eyes, and thinning hair exemplify the Renaissance desire to be truthful to nature. About this drawing, collector Richard Gray once observed, “Everything about it is masterful—the way it depicts a unique individual in the fullness of his individuality, it’s not a type. I...