KUPECKY, Jan
(1667, Bazin - 1740, Nürnberg)

Male Portrait (Self portrait ?)

c. 1690
Oil on canvas, 25.5x20.5 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Two versions of this picture are known, both of larger dimensions. In Bratislava's Slovenská národná galéria there is a painting with the signature Kupecky pin 1709, which derives from Királyfa's (today Králova pri Senci) Count Pálffy Collection (oil on canvas, 68.1 x 55.9 cm). The Bratislava portrait is undoubtedly of finer execution and of better qualities than the little Budapest picture. Thus it can be well considered a genuine work of Kupecky. There was, however also another version, sold in 1902 at a Viennese auction, together with the collection of the Counts Brunswick of Hungarian origin (oil on canvas, 59 x 49 cm). This painting, which has since disappeared and is known only from reproductions, was larger than the Budapest portrait, but smaller than the Bratislava one and was not identical with the latter. The composition of the three pictures is essentially the same. They represent a smooth-faced young man in dark clothes with a white collar and a fur hat set back, whose figure emerges against the dark background. The Bratislava painting was originally listed in the catalogues of the Pálffy collection as Kupecky's self portrait. On the basis of an engraved copy of the young Kupecky's self portrait, made by Johann Gottfried Saiter and Johann Jacob Haid, this attribution seems acceptable, the shape of the face, the mouth and the chin show a clear similarity. The represented person seems to be about 25 years old, and if the picture really is Kupecky's portrait, it could have been painted in Italy around 1690.


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