A Knight with his Jousting Helmet
- Artist: Giovanni Battista Moroni
- Date: about 1554-8
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Museum: The National Gallery
- Collection record: The National Gallery website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is "A Knight with his Jousting Helmet" by Giovanni Battista Moroni. Painted in the Italian north, it's a portrait of Conte Faustino Avogadro of Brescia. You might notice that the sitter has a brace supporting his left foot - this suggests he was suffering from a fairly common disorder caused by the failure of ankle muscles.
The way the plate armour is carelessly strewn about on the floor is quite unusual and unexplained, but it may be intended to highlight the sitter's enduring virtues. The ruined setting could also be seen as a commentary on his character. His rapier and helmet would have been worn for tournaments rather than for warfare.
The repetition of colours in different parts of the painting is typical of Moroni - the duck-egg blue of the sky appears in the veins of the marble panels, for example. The trunks are black and neither puffed nor rounded, which may suggest that the portrait dates to before 1560.
See it in person
A Knight with his Jousting Helmet hangs in The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
