



PROPERTY FROM THE WAR MUSEUM COLLECTION
Lot 5
Italian School(17th century)Portrait of Christopher Columbus
Ending from 24 November 2025, 13:00 EST
Online, Skinner Marlborough, MassachusettsUS$2,000 - US$4,000
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Jelena James
Senior Specialist, Head of Sale

Bids (Bonhams Skinner)

Jewel Bernier
Cataloguer

Claire Dettelbach
Cataloguer
Italian School (17th century)
Portrait of Christopher Columbus
unsigned; inscribed 'CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS' (along the upper edge)
oil on canvas
67.0 x 46.5 cm (26 3/8 x 18 5/16 in).
framed 86.5 x 66.0 x 5.5 cm (34 1/16 x 26 x 2 3/16 in).
unsigned; inscribed 'CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS' (along the upper edge)
oil on canvas
67.0 x 46.5 cm (26 3/8 x 18 5/16 in).
framed 86.5 x 66.0 x 5.5 cm (34 1/16 x 26 x 2 3/16 in).
Footnotes
Provenance
The Marchesi don Pietro and Donna Louise Afan de Rivera Costaguti.
Bonhams, New York, The Mapping and Discovery of America, April 14, 2012, lot 1.
The present private collection (acquired from the previous).
N.B.
The present portrait bears similarities to the engraving first published in Rome in 1596 by Aliprando Caprioli in Ritratti di cento capitani illustri, although here the figure looks out at the viewer and his clothing is slightly different. Caprioli's engraving resembles in turn a Columbus portrait by Antonio del Rincón [ca 1446–1500], a Spanish court painter to Ferdinand and Isabella. There are no known confirmed life-time portraits of Columbus.