JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post [Part of the series on Blank, Empty and Missing Things]
There was an anonymous painter,
in an anonymous room,
painting an anonymous woman,
in an anonymous gloom...--By Anonymous
I wondered about when it was that anonymous portraits appeared. Not just depictions of people in large battle scenes, or some unidentified spectator of some miraculous something, or wardens of the unknown in some sort of religious icon, but single subjects seated for a singular purpose of having their likeness rendered. And at the end of that process, the sitter would be anonymous--not their names-lost-to-history-anonymous after having the title of the painting lost to time, but always-and-forever anonymous. It seemed to me a luxury for a painter to paint for the sake of painting, that they would paint perhaps for pleasure or for practice, as the practice of purchasing anonymous portraits was not one of high popularity.
Anonymous portrait of an anonymous woman, ca. 1475
It seems though that I am mistaken, expecting not many to appear too early on--but once I went looking for anonymous portraits in the Renaissance, I found many. And at the base of it all, I'm not so sure why, though I guess that I must be wrong in assuming it a scarce practice. But it is still surprising, to me.
Domenico Ghirlandaio, ca. 1449
TIZIANO Vecellio, ca. 1515 Woman in Black
Woman by Francesco Laurana (ca. 1472).
Attributed to the anonymous master of Santo Spirito, fl. in Florence in the late 15th century.
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