A Man holding an Armless Statuette
- Artist: Italian, North
- Date: before 1640
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Museum: The National Gallery
- Collection record: The National Gallery website
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About this artwork
This is the "A Man holding an Armless Statuette" painted in the Italian north. He's a man within an oval fictive stone frame, and the statuette emerges from the painted space into our own, making him seem all the more lifelike.
The presence of the statuette suggests that he may be a sculptor or a collector – but there are no other clues as to his identity. The statue itself is probably a reduced copy, made of plaster, after an antique sculpture. His pose is close to that of a Roman marble sculpture from around 100 BC.
The painting's style, with its loose brushwork and fluid handling of paint, has led some to associate it with both Genoese and Venetian painters. The identity of the painter remains a mystery.
See it in person
A Man holding an Armless Statuette 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.
