Giovanni Borgherini and His Tutor

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Giovanni Borgherini and His Tutor is a c. 1505 oil on canvas painting attributed to Giorgione and now in Washington's National Gallery of Art.

It may be the work Vasari saw in Giovanni Borgherini's home in Florence, which he recorded as produced by Giorgione in Venice during Borgherini's youth. A 1568 edition of Vasari's Lives of the Artists states "In Florence by his [Giorgione's] hand in the house of Giovan Borgherini's sons [is] the portrait of the same Giovanni, when he was young in Venice, and in the same painting his tutor guiding him; one can see in both heads finer tints of shadow than in any other work". It was probably commissioned by Giovanni's father Salvi Borgherini, who was in Venice with his son from 1504 onwards.[1]

The work may have been left to Giovanni's heirs and successors until the knight Pier-Francesco Borgherini moved it into his collection in Milan. In 1923 it was sold to Sir Herbert Frederick Cook to hang at Doughty House in Richmond, Surrey. It was sold again in 1932 and 1960 and on the latter occasion was acquired by the American Michael Straight to hang at his home in Alexandria, Virginia. In 1974 he donated it to its present home.[2]

References[edit]

  1. ^ (in Italian) Alessandra Fregolent, Giorgione, Electa, Milano 2001. ISBN 88-8310-184-7
  2. ^ "Catalogue entry".