Bartolomeo Passerotti
(Bologna 1528-1593)
Portrait of a Botanist
Oil on canvas, 101 x 82.2 cm
This famous painting is one of the absolute masterpieces of 16th-century portraiture, not only for the high quality of its execution, but above all for its ability to innovate the portrait genre, making it modern, communicative and unconventional.
Painted around 1570, he is certainly a botanist or, more generally, a naturalist, dressed in dark clothes in front of a bench on which are displayed two vases, a sheet and two camomile plants of different species. His accentuated gestures and the floral elements in the background suggest that he is perhaps presenting us with the properties of a credible pharmaceutical formula.
The Bolognese painter’s interest in the natural sciences, fostered by his friendship with his fellow countryman Ulisse Aldrovandi, is also evident here, and some would have liked to see him represented in the painting.
