Collezione Farnese, "Alessandro Farnese" di Anthonis Mor

This beautiful portrait depicts the young Alessandro Farnese at the age of 12 and was made by the Flemish painter Antoni Smor in 1557, when the Duke of Parma, still small, was in Brussels with his mother Margherita d'Austria. In the portrait we see him depicted, according to a very frequent attitude, in Spanish portraiture, and this Flemish painter takes up the model of the portrait of his uncle Filippo II made by Tiziano, but he has a descriptive and analytical observation attitude of all the details. The boy is depicted in a neutral environment, without a background, and all the attention is focused on his pose, his gestures and his clothing. The clothes are extremely elegant, he wears a turtleneck, the so-called braghette, that is, these muffled trousers, a corset, all embroidered, and on top of that a black, shiny coat, and inside he is dressed in fur, which gives importance to the figure of the young Duke. In the gestures we see him placing his left hand on the edge of the sword, which already foretells what will be the future career of the Duke, of the young Duke, who will be educated in military art in Spain and will become one of the greatest generals of the Renaissance. On the other hand, he wears gloves, which are a symbol of elegance. Also in the gaze we see that he has this very concentrated expression, probably already foretelling what his future would be. The painting was part of the Farnese collections and from Parma it was brought to Rome and is remembered in the inventories of 1644 at Palazzo Farnese. It comes back to Parma at the end, in the second half of the 16th century, with all the rest of the collections that were brought to the Palazzo della Pilotta and the Palazzo del Giardino. It remained here in Parma even after the fact that Carlo di Borbone, when he became Duke in 1734, brought almost the entire collection to Naples and was in Capodimonte. So this is one of the few paintings that remain of the Farnese collection in Parma and has become part of the collections of the National Gallery.