Porträt eines jungen Mannes

A richly dressed young man in sable fur looks out with easy confidence. Many think he is Raphael himself. Taken by the Nazis from Poland, he was last seen in January 1945 and has been missing ever since.

The story behind the painting

Raphael painted this oil on panel probably in 1513 to 1514; Wikidata gives 1513. The sitter's identity is unverified, but many scholars have long seen it as a self-portrait, since the face is compatible with, if not clearly identical to, Raphael's only undoubted self-portrait, in his fresco The School of Athens. If it is him, nothing hints at his profession. Prince Adam George Czartoryski brought the painting to Poland after his travels in Italy in 1798, along with Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine, and it became part of the Czartoryski Museum.

What to look for

Wikipedia describes a confidently poised young man against a flesh-coloured wall and a hazy landscape. Look at the textures: sable fur, wavy dark hair, a ribbon on the sleeve, and the striking contrast of pure white against the dark fur. His left palm rests near his heart, a gesture the article reads as stressing self-identity and passion. Even the edges around the hair and the landscape are soft and hazy. Raphael's study of ideal human proportion may draw on ancient sculptures such as the Doryphoros and the Augustus of Prima Porta.

Meaning and intent

In 1939, as Germany invaded Poland, Prince Augustyn Jozef Czartoryski hid the painting with Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine and Rembrandt's Landscape with the Good Samaritan at Sieniawa. The Gestapo found them, and the three decorated the Krakow residence of Hans Frank, Nazi governor of occupied Poland, before going to Berlin and Dresden for Hitler's planned museum in Linz. In January 1945 Frank brought them back to Wawel Castle in Krakow. That is where the portrait was last seen. The other two paintings were found in 1945 and returned; this one, with 843 other objects, was not.

Legacy

The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that it has been known for years that the painting survived the war, and many believe it is stolen rather than lost. A 2012 media report of its rediscovery in a bank vault turned out to be a hoax. Its original empty frame now hangs in the National Museum in Krakow. Many historians regard it as the most important painting missing since the Second World War, and it has appeared in films, novels and even The Simpsons, waiting, like the empty frame, for its return.