Portrait of Count Fortunato Martinengo, c.1542 Moretto da Brescia (1498-1554)

We create our paintings with museum quality and covering the highest academic standards. Once we get your order, it will be entirely hand-painted with oil on canvas. All the materials we use are the highest level, being totally artist graded painting materials and linen canvas.

We will add 1.6" (4 cm) additional blank canvas all over the painting for stretching.

High quality and detailing in every inch are time consuming. The reproduction of Moretto da Brescia also needs time to dry in order to be completely ready for shipping, as this is crucial to not be damaged during transportation.
Based on the size, level of detail and complexity we need 8-9 weeks to complete the process.

In case the delivery date needs to be extended in time, or we are overloaded with requests, there will be an email sent to you sharing the new timelines of production and delivery.

TOPofART wants to remind you to keep patient, in order to get you the highest quality, being our mission to fulfill your expectations.

We not stretch and frame our oil paintings due to several reasons:
Painting reproduction is a high quality expensive product, which we cannot risk to damage by sending it being stretched.
Also, there are postal restrictions, regarding the size of the shipment.
Additionally, due to the dimensions of the stretched canvas, the shipment price may exceed the price of the product itself.

You can stretch and frame your painting in your local frame-shop.

Once the painting Portrait of Count Fortunato Martinengo is ready and dry, it will be shipped to your delivery address. The canvas will be rolled-up in a secure postal tube.

We offer free shipping as well as paid express transportation services.

After adding your artwork to the shopping cart, you will be able to check the delivery price using the Estimate Shipping and Tax tool.

The paintings we create are only of museum quality. Our academy graduated artists will never allow a compromise in the quality and detail of the ordered painting. TOPofART do not work, and will never allow ourselves to work with low quality studios from the Far East. We are based in Europe, and quality is our highest priority.

A white feather curls beside Fortunato’s face, its loose strands catching the light against his black cap. Below it, his cheek rests against his palm. The pose is weary, but the clothes are sumptuous: deep green sleeves gather into glossy folds, fine gold embroidery runs down his chest, and pale, spotted fur spreads across his shoulders. In Portrait of Count Fortunato Martinengo, painted around 1542, Moretto da Brescia makes this contrast between outward splendor and inward distraction the center of attention.

Fortunato was a nobleman from Brescia, a learned man who founded the Accademia dei Dubbiosi, an academy devoted to discussing intellectual and religious questions. Here, he seems to have paused in the middle of a thought. His eyes turn toward our side of the picture without quite seeming to settle on us. The portrait may have been ordered by him or his brothers ahead of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1541. That possible occasion gives his distracted expression another dimension, though we cannot know whether the journey occupies his mind.

On the green-covered table, gray gloves lie with their fingers pointing toward the edge. Nearby are ancient coins, a small round container, and an oil lamp fashioned as a sandaled foot. These are not simply signs of wealth: they place him among people who studied and valued the ancient world. Yet the lamp itself was probably a Renaissance object made to resemble an antiquity. Moretto gives these little things their own quiet presence, away from the broad sweep of the fur and the imposing figure.

The supported head belongs to a long visual tradition of melancholy, familiar from Dürer’s engraving Melencolia I. An inscription in Greek on the cap badge expresses an intense yearning, without naming its object. Knowledge, love, material desires, or Jerusalem might each offer a reading; none is certain. What we can see is the curious stillness of a man surrounded by things that seem unable to hold his attention.

The red and gold curtain leaves almost no open space behind him, while gray marble closes off the right side. Pink cushions soften the table beneath his elbow, and tiny touches of gold brighten his dark clothing. Everything is close enough to feel tangible. At the opposite side of the picture, his free hand rests over the red chair arm, the fingers loosely bent, as if even this small gesture has been left unfinished.