Portrait of the Physician Carlo Fontana

Bartolommeo Passarotti probably painted this portrait between 1570 and 1575. There is an almost identical portrait in a Viennese museum. In the Ghent canvas however the note found on the corner of the table in the Viennese version is missing. The dedication on this note reveals the man’s identity: ‘to the illustrious physician master Carlo Fontana of Bologna, who is…

Bartolommeo Passarotti probably painted this portrait between 1570 and 1575. There is an almost identical portrait in a Viennese museum. In the Ghent canvas however the note found on the corner of the table in the Viennese version is missing. The dedication on this note reveals the man’s identity: ‘to the illustrious physician master Carlo Fontana of Bologna, who is like a brother to me’. The rhetorical gestures in this and many other of Passarotti’s paintings is so characteristic of his art that they have almost become the artist’s individual signature. Passarotti also painted religious works, but mainly built a reputation founded on his renown as a portrait painter.