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''Portrait of a Young Man'' is a painting in oil on panel, probably from 1513–1514, by the Italian High Renaissance Old Master painter and architect Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino better known simply as Raphael.〔Houpt, Simon ''et al.'' (2006). ''Museum of the Missing,'' p. 49.〕 The painting was stolen by the Nazis from Poland. Many historians regard it as the most important painting missing since World War II.〔Winid, Boguslaw. ("Not Lost Forever: Recovery of Polish Art Looted During WWII," ) Polish Art club of Buffalo. 3 April 2004.〕〔 The subject's identity is unverified, but many scholars have traditionally regarded it as Raphael's self-portrait. The facial features are perceived by specialists as compatible with, if not clearly identical to, the only undoubted self-portrait by Raphael in his fresco ''The School of Athens'' at the Vatican, identified as such by Vasari. If it is a self-portrait, no hint is given of Raphael's profession; the portrait shows a richly-dressed and "confidently-poised" young man.〔Jones, Roger ''et al.'' (1983). ''Raphael'', p. 170–171.〕 〔If it can be accepted that this painting was indeed created by Raphael as a self-portrait, then he apparently identified particularly with the female gender, just as Da Vinci did in the Mona Lisa.〔Ann Friedberg, "Mutual Indifference, Feminism and Postmodernism," in The Other Perspective in Gender and Culture: Rewriting Women and the Symbolic, Juliet Flower MacCannell, ed., (Columbia University Press, 1999), 46〕 As a portrait painting of the ancient High Renaissance, Raphael's emphasis on erect poise, gesture, texture, decorous ornament, and softened form all represented cultivated Mannerist expression with the attributes of the noble class in a style which spread through southern Italy after Raphael's death. Here, the textural details of a flesh colored wall, sable fur, and wavy dark hair not only strike a Neo-Classical, sensitive balance between real humanity and nature, they extend gestures seen in previous female hand placement to stress man's role as a well-travelled humanist. Raphael humanized male gender so that the sleeve ribbon and hazy edges around hair and landscape reflected the interchangeability of each gender. A left palm placed near the heart emphasized self-identity and a passionate stance within the "right" spiritual context of Raphael's Counter-Reformation era. A striking contrast between pure white and sable intensified the doctrinal harmony between Heaven and Earth. It is probable that Raphael's studious approach to idealized representation of human proportion was based on his studies of ancient athletic and military heroes in Classical sculpture such as Doryphoros and Augustus of Prima Porta. The painting was brought to Poland, along with Leonardo da Vinci's ''Lady with an Ermine'' and many Roman antiquities, by Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, son of Princess Izabela Czartoryska, on his travels to Italy in 1798.〔 == The Nazi theft == At the onset of Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, then family patriarch Prince Augustyn Józef Czartoryski rescued numerous pieces from the Czartoryski Museum, including ''Portrait of a Young Man'', ''Lady with an Ermine'' and a Rembrandt masterpiece. The collection was hidden at a residence in Sieniawa, but was later discovered by the Gestapo, working for Hans Frank, Hitler's appointee as the governor of the General Government.〔 From the collection, these three paintings decorated Frank's residence in Kraków before they were sent to Berlin,〔 and Dresden, to become part of the Führer's own Collection at Linz, arranged by Hitler's plenipotentiary, Dr. Posse.〔 In January 1945, Frank brought the paintings back from Germany to Kraków for his own use at the royal Wawel Castle. This is where ''Portrait of a Young Man'' was last seen.〔 When the Germans evacuated from Kraków later that month ahead of the Soviet offensive, Frank took the paintings with him to Silesia and then to his own villa in Neuhaus. The Americans arrested Frank on May 3, 1945 pending trial for extensive war crimes (he was executed in 1946). The Polish representative at the Allies Commission for the Retrieval of Works of Art located some of the paintings stolen by him, and claimed them on behalf of the Czartoryski Museum. However, ''Portrait of a Young Man'' and 843 other artifacts were missing from storage. In recent times, a book about Nazi plunder by Lynn H. Nicholas and a documentary film by the same title, ''The Rape of Europa'', suggested that if the painting were to reappear today, it would be worth in excess of 100 million US dollars.〔PBS: (''The Rape of Europa'' ), 2006 film, aired November 24, 2008.〕 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 Young Man (Raphael)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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