Art Traveling
Hans Memling / Man with a Roman coin
Wikimedia Commons

Man with a Roman coin

1473 · Oil on oak panel

A young man (identified as the Venetian diplomat Bernardo Bembo) holds up an ancient Roman coin before a sunlit landscape, one of the portraits that made Memling popular with Italian clients.

ArtistHHans Memling
MuseumRRoyal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp
MovementEEarly Netherlandish Painting
LocationAntwerp, Belgium
Genreportrait
Dimensions31 × 23.3 cm
SourceWikidata Q3937422

Why it matters

An unknown man holds up a coin of the emperor Nero, a sign of his humanist interests. Memling was one of the first painters to place portraits in front of a landscape, influencing Botticelli and Perugino.

Did you know?

  • It dates from around 1480.
  • The sitter may have been an Italian living in Flanders, possibly Bernardo Bembo.
  • The background shows a lake landscape.

Based on the Wikipedia article Portrait of a Man with a Roman Medal (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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