Adam Petho de Gerse (? 1658 - ?)


Croatia unknown painter second half of the 17th century Oil on canvas 95 x 80 cm Boy standing at a table, depicted to the hips, turned three-quarters to the right, in a red tunic buttoned with a series of round gold toques, sleeves cut obliquely to the elbows, showing underneath it sleeves of a white shirt edged with gold embroidery. The boy holds in both hands a dark fur-cap decorated with three long white ostrich feathers. A drapery is shown at the left upper side, beneath it the family crest encircled with leaves, beneath it the inscription: 'ADAMVS PETTHEO / DE GERSE. / AETATIS SVAE Annorum 8 / 1666.'. In the top right hand corner there is a huge parrot. One of only a few children's portraits in the Paintings Collection of the HPM, this work is a first-class document of boys' clothing in the second half of the 17th century. The Petho de Gerse family has its origins in Hungary; the family moved to Croatia during the reign of ban Johannes Corvinus, who gave them the estates of Bela and Ivanec. The painting originates from the town of Bela; it was donated to the National Museum by Ivan Kukuljevic Sakcinski before 1889. M. Schneider, Portreti 16-18. stoljeca, Zagreb, 1982, pages 158-159, catalogue number 222; Od svagdana do blagdana - Barok u Hrvatskoj, (exhibition catalogue), Muzej za umjetnost i obrt, Zagreb, 1993, page 285, catalogue number 145. Over the years, numerous paintings from the collection of Ivan Kukuljevic Sakcinski have found their way to the collections of the National Museum; most of them were donated by Kukuljevic himself, who had early on understood the need for enriching the national Museum with 'faces of famous persons'.




HPM/PMH-002419