A current exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is focused on a subject that numismatists are well-versed in: looking at both sides of an object. Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits of the Renaissance is the first exhibit to examine multisided portraits, where the sitter’s likeness was concealed by a cover, within a box, or in a dual-faced format, where the covers and backs show symbols that related to the sitter’s background and character.

Most paintings are shown on a wall as two-dimensional objects, and once housed in a museum, the idea of them being portable is largely a forgotten possibility. In the Renaissance, smaller-sized portraits were often considered movable, created as diptychs, double-sided panels that pivoted, and paintings where the backs were painted. “The viewer was invited to judge the portrait by its cover, decode the emblematic emblems, allegories, and mythologies, and unmask the persona beneath,” the museum shares in its introductory gallery label, adding, “Bound in form and meaning, the alternate sides of a portrait shed light on the sitter’s identity and the work’s function as a token of friendship, love, or political allegiance.”

Portrait inside a coin box

A section on portable portraits examined how painted, enameled or carved portraits could be integrated into boxes and even coins, providing a portable, intimate object that could be carried on one’s person. Displayed is a 1604 German “Wild Man” thaler that was cut in half, hollowed out, and has a portrait of a lady inserted. Two coins were used, the other being a thaler of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. Such objects were often given as engagement gifts to a groom or bride. The catalog notes that the lady’s costume and headdress date the painting later than the coin box, when the two thalers were no longer in circulation, suggesting that the box and its painting were commissioned for personal reasons.

An alternative to the coin adaptations were round, painted miniature portraits, such as Hans Holbein the Younger’s Portrait of a Man in Royal Livery from 1532 to 1535 that depicts an artisan or attendant in Henry VIII’s household, as indicated by his red cap and coat embroidered with his employer’s initials. It likely once had a protective painted lid that would have identified the sitter and provided a portable way to protect the portrait while it was traveling. That the delicate oil and gold on vellum interior painting remains in excellent condition today reinforces the idea that it once had a cover.

Symbolic backs

The idea of the backs of paintings including symbolism related to the subject is seen in the display, with the curators showing coins and medals to display the relationship of obverse and reverse designs.

In one case, a bronze head of a woman protects a box mirror, representing ideal beauty and youth, which would contrast with the beholder’s actual appearance and reflection. Two Roman Imperial coins: an aureus of Augustus and an aureus of Diocletian illustrate how portraits combine with legends and symbols like laurel crowns and a wreath to show triumph and glory. Diocletian’s reverse depicts a standing nude Jupiter, representing military victory, stability and imperial power.

Medals and paintings

Medals by Pisanello are used to show how ancient coins inspired artists in the Renaissance, fusing portraits on one side with personalized emblems and allegories on the reverse.

A portrait medal of Cecilia Gonzaga from 1447 shows how the Italian artist built on a tradition of Roman coins by pairing sensitive portraits with richly symbolic reverses. Gonzaga was an accomplished classical scholar, refusing marriage and becoming a nun in 1445. Pisanello depicts her in secular court dress and the reverse shows a half-naked maiden.

Representing innocence and chastity, Gonzaga is shown subduing a unicorn, a symbol of knowledge and Christ, while, “The crescent moon, a sign of Diana, the Virgin goddess, is a humanist allusion to classical antiquity,” according to the museum. 

Pisanello’s portrait medal of humanist educator Vittorino Rambaldoni da Feltre, who was the teacher of the children of Gianfrancesco Gonzaga in Mantua, Italy, was likely commissioned by Ludovico Gonzaga, a former student, to honor the teacher.

The reverse shows a bird feeding its young, perhaps a pelican, “a traditional symbol of Christ’s sacrifice due to the belief that the pelican fed its young from the blood of a self-inflicted wound,” or alternately, “a phoenix, which, according to one of Vittorino’s pupils, represented his self-sacrifice as a teacher,” the museum suggests. In a larger context, animals are employed in heraldry to give form to the traits possessed by their human counterparts.

The relationship of front and back is amusingly seen in a portrait of a unknown man from around 1508 by the German artist Hans Süss von Kulmbach where the portrait is sensitive, with a slightly turned sitter gazing upwards. The back shows a young woman, seated at a window and watched by a cat, binding a garland of forget-me-nots. Floral garlands were prepared for weddings. She wears her hair freely, not concealed by a bonnet, signaling that she is unwed. A curling banderole above the figure reads, “I bind with forget-me-nots” and would symbolize respectable love to a contemporary viewer, confirming the young man’s identity as a bridegroom. The catalog explains, “The present panel’s combination of two sides into a narrative-like episode represents an unusual and innovative use of the double-sided format.”

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