308. Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494),

Italian, An Old Man with a Boy, c. 1490.

Tempera on panel, 62 x 46 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

 

 

This is the first time that a character is portrayed with such realism showing clearly disfiguring details. This portrait conveys the deep affection between the man and the boy. The motif of the open window on a landscape in the background was borrowed from the Flemish Renaissance and brought to Italy in the mid-fifteenth century by artists such as Filippo Lippi.