Inside the world of hidden Renaissance portraits: ‘It’s very playful’
During the Renaissance in Europe, a curious genre of portraiture rose to prominence and thrived: that of the so-called hidden portrait. Generally these portraits were complemented by either a cover that fit over the portrait or an obverse side on the back of the portrait, containing puzzle-like clues, symbols or a secondary portrait that enhanced the depth of the main work. A new exhibit at the Met unites dozens of these likenesses with their covers to offer a fascinating look at a largely lost art.
According to show curator Alison Nogueira, these portraits served a variety of uses, from providing a entertaining centerpiece at a gathering to celebrate a woman’s betrothal, marking a major journey, or commemorating a death. They could even be political propaganda. In evidence of that, Nogueira pointed to a particular hidden portrait made by painter Lucas Cranach at the behest of the celebrated Protestant revolutionary Martin Luther. In 1525, the renowned cleric’s wedding to the former nun Katharina von Bora Luther raised an outcry, as at the time clerical marriages were largely disapproved of, particularly to a woman who had taken her own vows. “Luther was a former cleric, and his wife was a former nun whose release from a convent he had facilitated,” Nogueira told me. “So their marriage was considered very controversial.”
Luther took a novel strategy for gaining acceptance for his marriage and the broader idea of relaxing church traditions around celibacy: he commissioned Cranach – who had long been charged with creating propaganda supporting the Reformation – to create twinned medals bearing a pair of portraits of Luther and von Bora. These medals fit into a small box that could be widely disseminated, acting in effect as marketing for the idea of Luther and von Bora’s nuptials. “The purpose of these portraits was really to bolster the legitimacy of Luther’s marriage,” said Nogueira.
The portraits of Luther and von Bora highlight that hidden portraits were often important ways of fostering communication. Although Luther’s was an instance of major statecraft, these works often served much more intimate purposes. For instance, that their enigmatic qualities and multiple interpretations might prompt satisfying, meaningful conversation during an evening gathering. They also were commonly used in courtship, becoming a way of communicating intentions as two lovers made their way though the various stages of a romance. Because these works offer elaborate details of a sitter’s identity, virtues and purpose, contemporary researchers have used them to gather invaluable information about intricacies of lives lived hundreds of years ago.
According to Nogueira, it is believed that this genre of paintings emerged out of double-sided medals painted in the Netherlands in the 1400s. As time passed, these works became more and more elaborate and allegorical, eventually developing a repertory of imagery that would be familiar to the genre. Hidden portraits proliferated through the 16th century, and the format gradually became smaller and smaller, until the portraits came to reside in personal objects, like locket and watches. Although the tradition largely died out in the 17th and 18th centuries, Nogueira pointed out that it still exists to some extent, citing Gustave Courbet’s The Origin of the World as a work that has gone on to exist in a covered format in the contemporary era.
When the genre flourished, it was strongly associated with the Shakespearean notion of us all being players on the stage of the world – or, alternatively, that we all wear masks at times, particularly when we are having our likeness taken. “It points to the idea of a portrait as a kind of false representation of the sitter,” said Nogueira. “On a more philosophical level, there’s the idea that everybody has their own mask and there’s the kind of theater of life.”
An example of this is Ridolfo Ghirlandaio’s Portrait of a Woman, loaned to the Met from the Uffizi Gallery. The cover of this painting features an image of a mask, along with an inscription in Latin that translates to, “to each his own mask”. Ghirlandaio’s cover is striking for how physically heavy and imposing the artist has made it feel, like an iron castle gate that is meant to keep out all who are not wanted. The cover’s imagery of fanciful, dragon-like creatures adds to the idea of a fearsome gatekeeper, and yet, the portrait beneath is strikingly different, showing a beautiful woman in elegant dress, a gossamer headpiece playing up her vulnerability. For all the sitter’s vulnerability, however, her closed expression calls back to the portrait’s protective cover.
As Nogueira commented, the facial features of the mask that Ghirlandaio placed on the cover are very similar to the face of woman that he depicted, bringing up notions of how the woman in the portrait may be masking her true self in various ways. “It’s very playful, especially with the self-referential inscription,” said Nogueira. “It’s one of the most evocative images of what role these portrait covers actually played.” A video offered in the Met’s exhibit recreates the experience of unveiling the portrait, letting audiences see how, as the panel is removed, the mask on the cover is shown to be poised right above the subject’s face.
The genre of covered portraits is still largely unknown, and Hidden Faces is in part meant to bring about greater awareness of these fascinating pieces. The exhibition started with Nogueira’s research into a pair of double-sided portraits in the Met’s Lehman collection, which led her to investigate the larger European context in which they were made. Once she had begun immersing herself in the genre, she sensed that this could be a subject for a brilliant exhibition. Although the basis of the show is The Met’s collection, it also features work drawn from collections throughout the US and Europe. Notably, Hidden Faces is a rare chance for audiences to see these portraits united with their covers, as they are often not displayed as such in their home institutions.
For Nogueira, this show helps shine a light on the fact that portraits are much more than just a physical likeness of the sitter, raising the question of just what is a portrait. “These allegories and emblems and symbols were originally integral parts of what we call a portrait,” she said. “What we consider a complete portrait is, in fact, kind of a fragment of a larger object that has been lost over time.”
Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits of the Renaissance is on show at the Met in New York until 7 July