Cornovia PostcardsPietro Perugino - Testa di Vergine, Firenze, c.1930 - Roberto Hoesch Cartolina
Hotspur🏳️🌈🇺🇦"Portrait of a Boy," Pietro Perugino, 1495.
Behold, I shew you a mystery.
The identity of the sitter here is unknown; for many years it was believed to be poet and diplomat Alessandro Braccesi in his youth, but that identification was refuted.
The identity of the painter was also hotly debated for a long time. It's unsigned and it was believe that painters ranging from Lorenzo di Credi to Jacopo Francia to Raphael, but now it's solidly credited to Perugino (1446/1452 - 1523), as the style is closest to his (although he tended to put landscapes in the backgrounds of his portraits).
Perugino is best known for some frescoes he did in the Sistine Chapel (it's not just Michelangelo!), for being a pioneer in oil painting, and for teaching Raphael. Perugino and Michelangelo disliked each other intensely; Perugino actually sued for defamation when Michelangelo referred to him as a "bungler."
Although his most famous works are religious ones, it seems Perugino was an atheist or agnostic. Hmm.
From the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
World History Encyclopedia