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''Portrait of a Man with a Blue Chaperon'' (or ''Portrait of a Man with a Blue Hood'', earlier known as ''Portrait of a Jeweler'' or ''Man with a Ring'') is a very small (22.5 cm x 16.6 cm with frame)〔The panel measures 19.1 cm x 13.2 without frame.〕 oil on panel portrait of an unidentified man by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. The painting was commissioned and completed sometime around 1430. It contains a number of elements typical of van Eyck's secular portraits, including a slightly oversized head, a dark and flat background, forensic attention to the small details and textures of the man's face, and illusionistic devices.〔Borchert, 35〕 Artists did not give titles to their works during the Northern Renaissance period, and as with any portrait of a sitter whose identity is lost, the painting has attracted generic titles over the years. It had long been thought that the ring held in the man's right hand was meant as an indication of his profession as a jeweler or goldsmith and so the painting was long titled on variants of such. More recently the ring is interpreted as an emblem of betrothal〔Borchert, 42〕 and the titles given by various art historians and publications since are usually more descriptive of the colour or form of the headdress. The painting was attributed to van Eyck in the late 19th century, but this was repeatedly challenged by some art historians until a 1991 cleaning when infra-red photography revealed an underdrawing and methods of handling of oil that were unmistakably van Eyck's. Prior to 1948, the panel belonged to the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, Romania. That year, the new Communist regime seized the panel, along with eighteen others it considered the museum's most valuable holdings, and gave it to the National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest. At the end of 2006, in time for Sibiu's stint as European Capital of Culture, the works were returned to the Brukenthal Museum.〔 (Palatul Brukenthal: Expoziţii Permanente Etajul II ) at the Brukenthal National Museum site; accessed November 25, 2012〕〔 ("'Omul cu tichie albastră' se întoarce la Sibiu" ), ''Ziua'', November 11, 2006 (hosted by 9AM News); accessed November 25, 2012〕〔 ("'Omul cu tichie albastră', preţioasa de la Brukenthal" ), Citynews, January 17, 2011; accessed November 25, 2012〕 ==Description== The man is shown in three-quarters view with his face dramatically lit by light falling from the left. This device provides both striking contrasts of light and shadow〔 and draws the viewer's attention on to the man's face. He has brown eyes, and while his expression is impassive there are traces of melancholy, especially in the down-turn of his mouth. He is obviously a member of the nobility, being very well dressed in a fur lined brown jacket over a black undervest. His headdress, a chaperon, contains two wings which hang down over the man's shoulders and extend to his chest. The edges of the cloth are given a shredded look at the edges of their trains. The hood is brightly and dramatically coloured using pigment extracted from the expensive lapis lazuli gemstone〔That he had access to this pigment reflects his wealth and influence at this relatively early stage in his unfortunately short 21 odd year career.〕 to give it its bright, intense hue. The headdress is of a similar but less extravagant type to that seen in van Eyck's c. 1433 ''Portrait of a Man'', and worn by a figure in the distance in his c. 1435 ''Madonna of Chancellor Rolin''.〔Campbell, 217〕 This type of headdress was to go out of fashion by the mid 1430s, conveniently and definitively dating the painting as having been completed before then.〔Richardson, 69〕 It is not known if the ring held in his right hand is intended to indicate that the sitter was a jeweller or goldsmith – as had been previously thought until Erwin Panofsky's analysis in the mid century – or that the painting was commissioned as a betrothal portrait intended to mark a proposal of marriage indented for an unseen bride and her family.〔 This latter theory is supported by the panel's near miniature dimensions; such a small size would have been easily packed and transported to the intended's family.〔 He has a light beard of one or two days' growth, a common feature in other of van Eyck's male portraits, where the sitter is often either unshaven, or according to Lorne Campbell of the National Gallery, London, "rather inefficiently shaved".〔Campbell, 216〕〔Campbell lists other van Eyck sitters depicted unshaven as Jodocus Vijdt, Niccolò Albergati, Jan van Eyck?, Joris van der Paele, Nicolas Rolin and Jan de Leeuw.〕 Art historian Till-Holger Borchert praises van Eyck recording of the man's stubble "with painstaking precision; nothing is idealised."〔 Yet it is interesting to consider such an idealised portrait in the context of a betrothal portrait, where the intended bride's family most likely had not met the man and are dependent solely on the portrait for an indication of his means and character. Carol Richardson observes that the unidealised representation would have been a significant novelty and shock at the time, and that, complete with the evident skill of the painter, the verisimilitude would have given the sitter weight and creditability.〔 The panel contains two illusionistic passages; the ring and his right hand appear to project out of the painting, while the minutely described fingers of his right hand seem to lie on a parapet positioned on what would have been the lower border of the original -but now lost- frame.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Portrait of a Man with a Blue Chaperon」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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