During the Renaissance in Europe, an interesting type of portraiture came to the fore and developed: the so-called hidden portrait. Often these portraits were completed either with a cover that fit over the portrait, or with a front that contained puzzle-like clues and symbols on the back of the portrait, or with a secondary portrait that increased the depth of the main work. A new exhibition at the Met combines dozens of these lookalikes with their covers to offer a fascinating look at a largely lost art.
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According to exhibition curator Alison Nogueira, these portraits served a variety of purposes, from being a fun centerpiece at a gathering to celebrate a woman’s engagement to marking a grand journey or commemorating a death. They may even be political propaganda. As proof of this, Nogueira pointed to a special secret portrait painted by painter Lucas Cranach at the behest of the famous Protestant revolutionary Martin Luther. In 1525, the famous clergyman’s wedding to former nun Katharina von Bora Luther provoked a great deal of outrage, as the clergy largely disapproved of their marriage, especially for a woman who had taken her own vows. “Luther was a former clergyman and his wife was a former nun whose release from the monastery he facilitated,” Nogueira told me. “That’s why their marriage was considered so controversial.”
To gain recognition for his marriage, Luther adopted a new strategy and the idea of relaxing church traditions regarding celibacy: He commissioned Cranach, long tasked with producing propaganda in support of the Reformation, to create twin medals bearing a double portrait of Luther. von Bora. These medals fit into a small box that could be distributed widely and essentially served as marketing for Luther and von Bora’s idea of marriage. “The purpose of these portraits was actually to support the legitimacy of Luther’s marriage,” Nogueira said.
The portraits of Luther and von Bora emphasize that secret portraits were often important ways to enhance communication. Although Luther’s was an example of great government, these works often served much more specific purposes. For example, their enigmatic qualities and multiple interpretations can lead to a satisfying, meaningful conversation at an evening gathering. They were also commonly used during courtship, becoming a way to communicate intentions as two lovers moved through the various stages of a romance. Because these artifacts provide detailed details about the sitter’s identity, virtues, and purpose, contemporary researchers have used them to glean invaluable information about the intricacies of lives lived hundreds of years ago.
According to Nogueira, this type of painting is believed to have emerged from double-sided medals painted in the Netherlands in the 1400s. As time passed, these works became increasingly elaborate and allegorical, eventually developing a repertoire of images that would become familiar to the genre. Occult portraits proliferated throughout the 16th century, and the format gradually became smaller until portraits were featured on personal objects such as lockets and watches. Although the tradition was largely extinct in the 17th and 18th centuries, Nogueira pointed out that the tradition still exists to some extent, noting that Gustave Courbet’s The Origin of the World is a work that continues to exist in a closed format in the contemporary era.
As the genre developed, it became strongly associated with Shakespeare’s notion that we are all actors on the world stage, or alternatively that we all wear masks from time to time, especially when having our likeness made. “This points to the idea that the portrait is a kind of false representation of the sitter,” Nogueira said. “On a more philosophical level, there is this idea that everyone has their own mask and there is a kind of theater of life.”
An example of this is Ridolfo Ghirlandaio’s Portrait of a Woman, which was loaned to the Met from the Uffizi Gallery. On the cover of this painting, there is a picture of a mask and an inscription that means “everyone has their own mask” in Latin. Ghirlandaio’s cover is notable for how physically heavy and imposing the artist feels; like an iron castle gate designed to keep out the undesirables. The depiction of fantastical, dragon-like creatures on the cover adds to the idea of a fearsome guard, yet the portrait below is strikingly different; It shows a beautiful woman in an elegant dress and a thin headdress, emphasizing her fragility. Despite all the model’s fragility, her closed expression reminds us of the protective cover of the portrait.
As Nogueira comments, the facial features of the mask Ghirlandaio placed on the cover closely resemble the female face he depicts, raising ideas of how the woman in the portrait may be masking her true self in various ways. “It’s a lot of fun, especially with the self-referential writing,” Nogueira said. “This is one of the most evocative images of the role that portrait covers actually play.” A video presented at the Met’s exhibition recreates the experience of unveiling the portrait, allowing viewers to see how the cover’s mask balances right above the person’s face when the panel is removed.
The genre of closed portraits remains largely unknown, and Hidden Faces aims in part to raise greater awareness of these fascinating pieces. The exhibition began with Nogueira’s research on a pair of double-sided portraits in the Met’s Lehman collection, which led him to investigate the broader European context in which these portraits were made. As he began to immerse himself in the genre, he felt that it could be the subject of a magnificent exhibition. Although The Met’s collection forms the basis of the exhibition, works from collections in the USA and Europe are also included. Hidden Faces, in particular, is a rare chance for audiences to see these portraits together with their covers, as they are not usually exhibited this way at their home institutions.
According to Nogueira, this exhibition sheds light on the fact that portraits are much more than the physical resemblance of the model and raises the question of what a portrait is. “These allegories, emblems and symbols were actually integral parts of what we call portraiture,” he said. “What we consider a complete portrait is actually a fragment of a larger object that disappears over time.”