Another of the icons of the Thyssen collection
I head to other rooms. In one of them I stop in front of the portrait of "Henry VIII" by Hans Holbein "The Young". His serious and majestic aspect reveals what he was. But before anything, and after having seen so many half-length portraits, I stop in front of a full-length one: it is the "Young Knight in a Landscape" by Vittore Carpaccio, another of the icons of the Thyssen collection. I was told it is one of the first examples of a full-length portrait of European painting. Until 1958, it was attributed to Alberto Durero, but when they restored it they discovered the name of the painter and the date when it was made in the branch on the right side of the frame: VICTOR CARPATHIUS / PINXIT M.D.X
Vittore, possibly Venician, born between 1460 and 1465, was a follower of Giovanni Bellini. We do not know much about his life but we do know that he died in Venice in 1525 or 1526. It is very likely that he was a traveler like me: he could have traveled to Flanders and to Orient, as he seems to insinuate in his paintings.
In this painting, elegant and with a beautiful perspective, there are animals, trees, flowers and landscape, as if it was some nature treatise. At the same time it is full of opposite: predatory birds and prey birds, white iris and blue iris, the man has the helmet the child misses, and the child has the hose the man misses. What does Vittore pretend with all this? Is it Saint Michael the Archangel? Is it a man of the Napolitan Order of the Ermine, as he takes off the animal chasing him at his feet? I have no clue.
