"Portrait of a Man with a Pink" by Quentin Massys

Portrait of a Man with a Pink is a charming early 16^th century painting by the Netherlandish artist Quentin Massys, which has recently gone on display at the Art Institute of Chicago for the first time in many years. The painting was a gift from John J. Glessner, a long-time trustee of the Institute and a close friend of its president, Charles L. Hutchinson. In this article, we will explore the somewhat complicated history of the artwork and how it found its way to Chicago.

Charles Hutchinson and the growth of the Art Institute

The Art Institute of Chicago emerged out of the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, formed in 1879. The Academy had acquired the assets of the defunct Chicago Academy of Design, including its leased rooms, artwork, and furniture, and some of its teaching staff. Hutchinson, who was just 25 years old when the Academy of Fine Arts was founded, was deeply involved in both the educational and exhibition aspects of the organization from the beginning, and in 1881 was named vice president. He quickly advocated for a larger permanent location and a name change to the Art Institute of Chicago. The latter was adopted in 1882, the year Hutchinson was elected president.

At that time, there were only three major art museums in the United States, located in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. By the time Hutchinson died in 1924, having served continuously as president of the Art Institute for 42 years, it was an internationally recognized museum, thanks to Hutchinson’s boundless vision and determination. As Celia Hilliard noted of Hutchinson and his contemporaries in her excellent biography, The Prime Mover: Charles L. Hutchinson and the Making of the Art Institute of Chicago (Museum Studies 36 No. 1, Art Institute of Chicago, 2010):

“Thanks to their wealth, these men traveled widely in the United States, and, above all, Europe, where they were exposed to grand cultural institutions that their fathers could not have imagined; they returned to their hometowns eager to ‘civilize’ them. Coming of age at a critical juncture in the lives of their cities, they were able to help shape these places according to their ideals, founding libraries, museums, and symphonies – organizations intended to make the elevating forces of culture available to all. Thanks to their enthusiasm, generosity, and social connections, their success was unprecedented. Hutchinson, the son of a meat packer and speculator, stood at the helm of the Midwest’s preeminent museum for over forty years, and epitomizes these changes. Like his peers, he was a product of his time and place and, simultaneously, exactly what it needed.”

Growth of the collection

In November 1887, the Art Institute moved into its first permanent building at the southwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Van Buren Street, a Richardsonian Romanesque structure designed by Burnham & Root. Although attendance and membership were strong, the Institute was still relying largely on the exhibition of loaned artworks to draw people through its doors. As Hillard wrote:

“Many great museums are noted for the buildings they inhabit, but ultimately their quality rests on the excellence of their collections and the skill with which they are presented. Thus, during this same period when the grand new home of the Art Institute was in gestation, Hutchinson also turned his attention to issues of interior design and presentation, and considered what purchases and gifts might best augment the museum’s growing reputation.”

This led Hutchinson to make two significant trips to Europe in 1889 and 1890. During the 1889 trip, Hutchinson and his wife visited the Villa di Pratolino outside of Florence, to view an important collection of Dutch and Flemish Old Master paintings that had been assembled by the Russian industrialist Count Nikolay Nikitich Demidov and expanded by his son Anatoly, who had died in 1870. Many of the artworks had been sold off at that time, but a significant collection was bequeathed to Anatoly’s nephew Paul, who sold additional pieces in 1881, retaining thirty of the best works for himself. Paul died in 1885 and his widow sold a few more paintings (now at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston). By the time Hutchinson arrived in Europe, she had decided to sell the remaining works and engaged the house of Durand-Ruel to negotiate the sale.

Durand-Ruel was the most important French art dealer in the 19^th century. The business had started as an art shop in 1839 by Jean Marie Fortune Durand and Marie Ferdinande Ruel. Their son, Paul, took over the business in 1865 at the age of 24, expanding the operation with a larger gallery and advocating for painters of the Barbizon school. By the late 1880s, Paul’s three sons were actively engaged in the business, buying Old Masters and continuing their father’s significant interest in, and support of, the Impressionists. They also expanded to the United States, opening a gallery in New York, and coordinating exhibitions in Chicago as early as 1888.

Hutchinson returned to Europe in 1890 with the goal of coordinating a loan of the Demidov paintings for the Art Institute. He quickly discovered, however, that a few paintings had already been sold, and that the works were available for purchase, not loan. He cabled trustees and friends back in Chicago, including Marshall Field, Philip Armour, and Sidney Kent, asking if they would purchase the paintings and hold them until the Art Institute could purchase them, or donors could be found to donate them. They agreed, and Hutchinson went to Florence to finalize the purchase of thirteen paintings for $200,000, including works by van Dyck, Hals, Hobbema, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Steen. Back in Paris, Hutchinson ran into Art Institute trustee Edson Keith (a Prairie Avenue neighbor of the Glessners), who made the first gift, acquiring Willem Van Mieris’s canvas, The Happy Mother.

Portrait of a Man with a Pink comes to Chicago

While at the Durand-Ruel gallery, Hutchinson noted another painting, Portrait of a Man with a Pink, attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger. The German artist of the first half of the 16^th century was regarded as one of the greatest portraitists of his time, and Hutchinson was anxious to have his work represented in the museum. He acquired the painting, bringing it back to Chicago with the goal of finding a donor to finance its $4,000 purchase (about $130,000 today).

The portrait, painted between 1500 and 1510, is believed to have been part of the Colonna di Sciarra collection for many years. The House of Colonna, also known as Sciarrillo or Sciarra, was an Italian noble family powerful in medieval and Renaissance Rome. One family member, Oddone Colonna, became Pope Martin V in 1417. By the early 1880s, the painting was owned by Ernest May, a prominent French financier and art collector. This was the period in which May was shifting his interest to the Impressionists, including the work of Edgar Degas, who captured May (at center) in the painting shown below. On June 4, 1890, May sold the Holbein portrait through Durand-Ruel to Charles Hutchinson for the Art Institute.

Less than a month later, Hutchinson was back in the United States, anxious to share the news of his successful journey with the newspapers. On July 2, 1890, the Chicago Tribune reported:

“Charley Hutchinson is just in from Europe, fresh as a daisy, and enthusiastic over the art purchases that Mr. Ryerson and he have made to enrich the growing treasures of the Chicago Art Institute . . . He feels that what has been bought by Chicago’s committee so truly represents the Dutch masters that Chicago need not give place even to New York in the possession of examples of this school of art.”

Members of the press were invited to view the paintings on November 7, 1890, the day before the exhibition opened to members. Beautifully displayed in a gallery accented with palms, ferns, and live music, the paintings impressed the journalist for the Chicago Tribune, who reported, no doubt to Hutchinson’s satisfaction:

“They are unquestionably the most representative collection of pictures by the old Dutch masters ever brought to this country, embracing many works of the first importance, which the great European museums would be proud to possess and have indeed tried to secure. They give to Chicago the supremacy among American cities in this department, and open for our students of art a vast field of profitable study. Thus the thanks of the community are due to the gentlemen who so promptly and with such admirable public spirit availed themselves of a unique opportunity.”

The illustration of the Portrait of a Man with a Pink shown above, was included in the article with the following description:

“The last of the portraits to be noticed is also the smallest, the others being life-size half-length figures; and the oldest, belonging to the sixteenth century, while the others date from the seventeenth. This is the panel by the German master Holbein, which is a good example of the rigid, literal, sculpturesque style of Henry the Eighth’s court painter . . . the face is unmistakably, humanly true; one does not doubt this man’s existence for an instant or miss one note of his rather strenuous character.”

A question of attribution

The exhibition proved an enormous success with Chicagoans rightly proud of their “masterly coup.” However, almost immediately, the authenticity of a few of the works, including the Holbein, was called into question by an attendee of the opening night reception. He notified the Chicago Tribune of his opinion, which was summarily dismissed by the journalist who maintained that the collection consisted of “first-class examples of the respective painters.”

The Holbein attribution did receive closer scrutiny, and by the time John Glessner made his anonymous, retroactive gift of $4,000 in 1894, the painting was attributed simply to the “Flemish School.” The listing below, taken from the annual report of the Art Institute issued in 1895, shows the painting as item #1.

In December 1913, the painting received renewed attention when the well-respected art expert, Dr. Abraham Bredius, director of theMauritshuis art museum at The Hague in the Netherlands, toured the Old Masters galleries at the Art Institute. He identified the portrait as the work of Hans Memling (c. 1430-1494), regarded as one of the most important Netherlandish painters of the 15^th century. Memling’s art had been rediscovered in the 19^th century, so this attribution made the painting far more valuable than the work of an unidentified Flemish artist.

The attribution was short-lived but brought additional attention to the painting. Within a few years, it was conclusively identified as the work of Quentin Massys (also spelled Matsys), a founder of the Antwerp school of painting. Massys was born in Leuven in 1466 and is believed to have attained his master’s status there, before moving to Antwerp, which, by the early 16^th century, had become the artistic center of The Netherlands. Massys became one of the first notable artists in Antwerp and was elected a member of the Guild of Saint Luke.

His work is noted for its effects of light and shade, firmness of outline, clear modelling, and thorough finish of detail. His effective use of transparent pigments provided a glowing richness to his paintings that was reminiscent of the work of Memling. He was also known for his “strenuous effort” to express individual character, something clearly seen in the portrait. Massys died in Antwerp in 1530, after enjoying a reputation as a cult figure, and paving the path for a school of painting that culminated with the career of Peter Paul Rubens.

Conclusion

The painting remained popular, traveling to New York for a loan exhibition in 1929 and to Antwerp in 1930 for the Exposition d’art flamand ancien, showcasing the work of early Flemish painters. It was exhibited by the Art Institute during the Century of Progress in both 1933 and 1934 and returned to New York in the years following, as well as being exhibited in Columbus, Ohio (which, by coincidence, is just an hour from Zanesville, where John Glessner was born and raised).

Now back on the display in Gallery 207 (The Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Gallery) for the first time in many years, the oil on panel painting, which measures just 11-1/2 by 17-1/4 inches, still captivates with its brilliant use of color, and stark realism. The tag adjacent to the painting reads:

“In this portrait from relatively early in his career, Quentin Massys followed stylistic conventions that appealed to Antwerp’s growing market of patrons while also exhibiting the bold innovations that ultimately made him one of the city’s most influential painters. The sitter appears frozen in a somewhat unnatural pose, as was the fashion for half-length portraits at the time, and the positioning of his left hand on the painting’s lower edge recalls the spatial illusionism found in portraits by Netherlandish artists of the previous generation. However, the subtle modeling of the face conveys a strong sense of the sitter’s individual character at a time when such works tended to idealize their subjects. The pink, or carnation, held by the sitter could symbolize marriage or Jesus Christ’s incarnation.”

A Portrait by Quentin Massys

"Portrait of a Man with a Pink"
Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

Pasted into the Glessners’ scrapbook is an article from the Chicago Tribune dated December 28, 1913 entitled “Art Masterpiece Discovered Here.”  Written by Harriet Monroe, the article relates the story of an art expert visiting the Art Institute of Chicago and identifying a previously unattributed portrait as the work of the 15^th century painter Hans Memling.  The significance to the Glessners lies in the fact that John J. Glessner was the donor of the artwork.  However, the story and true identity of the artist are more complicated.

The portrait, entitled “Portrait of a Man with a Pink” was acquired by Art Institute president Charles L. Hutchinson in June 1890 through the prominent Paris art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel.  Hutchinson and his good friend Martin A. Ryerson (a founding trustee of the Art Institute) had travelled to Europe that summer, returning with an important collection of Dutch masterworks including the portrait, for which he paid 13,000 francs.  It was first put on public display in Chicago on November 8, 1890 according to a Tribune article “At the Art Institute”:

“The old paintings by Dutch masters which were purchased last summer for the Art Institute by Messrs. Hutchinson and Ryerson were shown yesterday afternoon to the members of the press and will be exhibited this evening, at the reception which inaugurates the present season, to the members of the institute, being afterwards accessible to the general public.  

“A view of the paintings confirms the impression of their importance already gained from the inspection of photographs and conversations with officers of the institute.  They are unquestionably the most representative collection of pictures by the old Dutch masters ever brought to this country, embracing many works of the first importance, which the great European museums would be proud to possess and have indeed tried to secure.  They give to Chicago the supremacy among American cities in this department, and open for our students of art a vast field of profitable study.  Thus the thanks of the community are due to the gentlemen who so promptly and with such admirable public spirit availed themselves of a unique opportunity.”

1890 illustration from the Chicago Tribune

The collection of paintings included works by Van Dyck, Hals, and Rubens, as well as the iconic Rembrandt painting, “Young Woman at an Open Half-Door.”  Of the “Portrait of a Man with a Pink,” the article related:

“The last of the portraits to be noticed is also the smallest . . . and the oldest, belonging to the sixteenth century. . . This is the panel by the German master Holbein, which is a good example of the rigid, literal, sculpturesque style of Henry the Eight’s court painter, whose portraits form an intimately faithful historical gallery of that dramatic epoch.  His present subject might have been molded in copper, so dark is his color, or made of leather, so leathery is his skin.  But the face is unmistakably, humanly true; one does not doubt this man’s existence for an instant or miss one note of his rather strenuous character.”

When Hutchinson acquired the portrait, he believed it to be a work of the great German portraitist Hans Holbein the Younger, who by the mid-1530s had been appointed the “King’s Painter” to King Henry VIII, chronicling the English court during that turbulent period.  Hutchinson appealed to his friends to cover the cost of the significant collection of Dutch artworks he acquired and, in 1894, John Glessner retroactively provided the gift for the Holbein portrait.

However, at some point, the attribution of the painting as the work of Holbein was put aside, and by the early 1900s, the painting was described as the work of an “unknown Flemish Master.”  That changed in 1913 when Dr. Abraham Bredius, director of The Hague Museum, visited the Art Institute as part of a tour studying Dutch paintings in American collections, primarily the Rembrandts.  The 1913 Tribune article says of his discovery:

“Dr. Bredius’ opinion enriches the institute collection by a Memling portrait.  The ‘Portrait of a Man,’ hitherto ascribed to an ‘unknown Flemish master,’ which was presented to the institute nearly twenty years ago by John J. Glessner, is declared to be an unusually fine example of the work in portraiture of Hans Memling, the great Flemish master, who died in Bruges about 1492.  The picture is worth, therefore, many times the $4,000 which Mr. Glessner paid for it.”

1913 illustration from the Chicago Tribune

The Memling attribution was short lived.  The painting was photographed by Braun and reproduced by Max Friedlander in the second edition of his volume From Jan van Eyck to Bruegel, published in 1921.  It was Friedlander, generally recognized as the greatest expert of Dutch and German paintings, who identified the portrait as the work of Quentin Massys. 

Quentin Massys (1466-1530) was a Flemish painter and one of the founders of the Antwerp school.  The portrait, an oil on panel measuring 11 by 17 inches, was painted between 1500 and 1510.  As noted in the permanent collection label for the portrait:

“In the early 16^th century, Antwerp experienced remarkable growth as a commercial center, and Quentin Massys was one of the most important and innovative of its many painters.  In this relatively early and rather damaged portrait, he followed 15^th-century tradition by employing an immobile pose, barely allowing his subject’s hands to appear above the sill of the picture frame.  Yet Massys developed a distinctive and nuanced manner of modeling the face, which here conveys a strong sense of individual character.  The pink, or carnation, held by the sitter could refer to matrimony or to Christ’s incarnation.” 

Regardless of the controversy over who painted the portrait, it has been recognized as an important work at the Art Institute since the 1890s, and has been included in many catalogues of the collection.  It was part of the Art Institute exhibition at A Century of Progress in both 1933 and 1934, and travelled to exhibits in Antwerp and New York.  Although it is the only work by Massys at the Art Institute, it is not currently on exhibit, possibly due to its somewhat compromised condition.  It is hoped, however, that this significant donation to the collection by John J. Glessner will once again be put on public display for all to enjoy.