PITTORE BOLOGNESE DEL XVI-XVII SECOLO Lot n° 29

Portrait of Petrus Gonsalvus (Tenerife, 1537 - Capodimonte, 1618) Oil on copper, cm 20.5X16 Provenance: Private collection The painting is one of the rare portraits of Pedro Gonsalvus, who, a native of Tenerife, was taken prisoner by the Spaniards at the age of ten and while being taken to Charles V, was captured by French privateers and sent to the French court as an extravagant gift for King Henry II and his wife Catherine de Medici. The man, of aristocratic origins as heir to a Guaci royal family, suffered from hypertrichosis, and the Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi called him 'the man of the woods'; at the French court he was called 'the wild gentleman of Tenerife.' That said, Gonsalvus received a polite upbringing, so much so that he could afford the appellation 'don,' with the understanding that his prerogative was to impersonate a naturalistic curiosity. Nonetheless, the young man became one of the most cultured personalities in Henry II's entourage, and at the age of thirty-six, at the queen's whim, he was given in marriage to the most beautiful of his ladies-in-waiting, Catherine, with whom he had six children and gave rise to the narrative of 'beauty and the beast.' Between 1580 and 1590 Petrus Gonsalvus traveled with his family to Italy, where he stayed at the court of Margaret of Parma. He later settled in Capodimonte, in the Rocca Farnese on Lake Bolsena in the province of Viterbo, where he died in 1618. Returning to the painting, as we know there are few of those depicting Pedro Gonsalvus, and the known ones are preserved in Ambras Castle near Innsbruck in the so-called 'Room of Art and Curiosities.' Famous, on the other hand, is the portrait of his daughter Antoinette painted by Lavinia Fontana in two redactions who also suffered from hypertrichosis. Reference bibliography: R. Zapperi, El salvaje gentilhombre de Tenerife: la singular historia de Pedro Gonzáles y su familia, Zeck 2006, ad vocem