# Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel > Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, called Sandro Botticelli - c. 1480. Proposed dates run from about 1470 to about 1490. > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/sandro-botticelli/botticelli-portrait-of-a-young-man-holding-a-roundel/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-04 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, called Sandro Botticelli - **Date:** c. 1480. Proposed dates run from about 1470 to about 1490. - **Medium:** Tempera on poplar panel, incorporating an inserted mid-fourteenth-century painted roundel - **Dimensions:** 58.4 x 39.4 cm (23 x 15 1/2 in.) - **Object type:** Painting - **Period:** Italian, fifteenth century - **Current location:** Private collection. Bought at Sotheby's New York on 28 January 2021 by an anonymous telephone bidder. - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A poplar panel of about 1480, 58.4 by 39.4 centimetres, showing a young Florentine man holding, on a parapet, a painted roundel of a blessing saint. The roundel is not Botticelli's. It is a separate mid-fourteenth-century Sienese panel, dated by Richard Offner and attributed to Bartolommeo Bulgarini, which was set into the wood before Botticelli painted around it. The picture is one object, two paintings and two hands separated by roughly a hundred and thirty years.It came out of Tuscany in the 1780s with a Welsh baron, descended through his family for a century and a half, was sold by trustees at Christie's in London in December 1982 for 810,000 pounds, and spent almost the whole of the next forty years on the walls of the National Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum and the National Gallery of Art in Washington. On 28 January 2021 it made 80 million dollars at the hammer, published at 92.2 million with fees, a record for the artist and for any Old Master sold at Sotheby's.The record for Botticelli before that afternoon was 10,442,500 dollars. Nothing about the panel had changed. What had changed was that it was for sale, and that half a century of museum labels had done the work an attribution argument does elsewhere. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 1480-c. 1790** Unrecorded, presumably in Florence `[unknown]` (gap) No owner is documented for roughly three centuries. The roundel inside the panel is older still, a mid-fourteenth-century Sienese painting whose own history before its insertion is entirely unknown. - **c. 1790-c. 1935** The Wynn family, Barons Newborough, Caernarvon `[documented]` (purchase and descent) Likely acquired by Sir Thomas Wynn, 3rd Baronet and 1st Baron Newborough (1736-1807), during his residence in Tuscany between 1782 and 1791. Descended to his son Thomas John Wynn, 2nd Lord Newborough (1802-1832); to Spencer Bulkeley Wynn, 3rd Lord (1803-1888); to Frederick George Wynn (1853-1932), the 3rd Lord's youngest son; and to Thomas John Wynn, 5th Lord Newborough (1878-1957). The picture enters the published literature only in the 1930s, so the eighteenth-century acquisition rests on family history rather than on a document named in the catalogue. - **c. 1935-1941** Frank Sabin, London `[documented]` (purchase by a dealer) Acquired from the Newborough family by the London dealer Frank Sabin around 1935 and sold on to Sir Thomas Ralph Merton by May 1941. - **1941-1982** Sir Thomas Ralph Merton (1888-1969), then Violet Marjory Merton (1891-1976), then trustees `[documented]` (purchase and descent) Merton was a spectroscopist and a Fellow of the Royal Society as well as a collector of Old Masters. The picture was lent to the Royal Academy in 1960 and to the National Gallery in London from November 1969, during this ownership. Sold by the trustees at Christie's London on 10 December 1982 as lot 92. - **1982-2021** Sheldon Solow, New York, then his estate `[documented]` (purchase at auction) Bought at Christie's London on 10 December 1982, lot 92, for 810,000 pounds, about 1.3 million dollars. Lent almost continuously for the whole period: the Metropolitan Museum 1987 to 1989, the National Gallery of Art in Washington 1990 to 2013, the Stadel Museum in Frankfurt in 2009 and 2010, and the Metropolitan again from 2013 to February 2020. The consignment to Sotheby's was announced in September 2020, while Solow was alive; he died in November 2020 and the sale was completed by his estate. - **2021-present** Anonymous private buyer `[documented]` (purchase at auction) Bought at Sotheby's New York on 28 January 2021, lot 15, at a hammer of 80 million dollars. The winning bid was taken on the telephone by Lilija Sitnika of Sotheby's Russia desk in London. The buyer has not been named and no location, loan or exhibition has been recorded since. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **1982-12-10** Christie's, London, lot 92 - Hammer: GBP 810,000 - With premium: Not published in the sources consulted - Sold by the Merton trustees and bought by Sheldon Solow. Reported at the time and since as about 1.3 million dollars. The sterling figure is the one reported; whether it is a hammer or a fee-inclusive total is not stated in the sources consulted, and Christie's London charged a buyer's premium in 1982, so the two are not identical. Treated here as the reported price rather than as a confirmed hammer. - **2021-01-28** Sotheby's, Master Paintings and Sculpture Part I, New York, lot 15 - Estimate: In excess of USD 80,000,000. CONFIRMED verbatim against Sotheby's own press release, which prints 'Estimate in excess of $80 million'. - Hammer: USD 80,000,000. UNCHANGED and still NOT published by the house: Sotheby's press release does not state a hammer. It prints the estimate as 'in excess of $80 million', which is an estimate and must not be read as the hammer merely because the two coincide. - With premium: USD 92.2 m per Sotheby's own press release; USD 92.1 m per The Art Newspaper. Premium-inclusive. UNCHANGED. - Sotheby's press notice 'newsflash-sandro-botticelli' was read in full, not through a summariser. It prints, in its own summary block, 'Estimate in excess of $80 million' and 'Sold for $92.2 million'. The record's reconciled figure of USD 92,184,000 has not been located printed in full, and the house's own announcement of its own record does not print it either, rounding instead to 92.2 - so the exact total remains unpublished by the seller, and the 92.2 and 92.1 million figures are two roundings of one unstated number rather than two competing figures. The derived premium components remain derived: no Sotheby's premium chart for January 2021 has been read. The same release states the picture was 'Last Purchased at Auction for $1.3 Million in 1982', which matches the record's account that the GBP 810,000 was reported at the time as about 1.3 million dollars, confirming that the dollar figure is contemporary reporting rather than a later conversion. The release also gives the previous Botticelli auction record as the Rockefeller Madonna, USD 10,442,500, Christie's New York, 2013. ## Open questions - Who is the sitter? The picture has been catalogued as Giovanni di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, but the identification is a proposal and Sotheby's own catalogue treats it as uncertain. - When was the roundel inserted, and by whom? Nothing establishes whether the insert was made for Botticelli, by Botticelli's shop, or in the panel he was given to work on. - Is the Bulgarini attribution of the roundel testable? Only the painted face of the disc is accessible; the reverse is inside the poplar panel and cannot be examined without dismantling the object. - Did Sir Thomas Ralph Merton, a Fellow of the Royal Society who owned the picture from 1941 and took an interest in the scientific examination of paintings, ever examine it? No such record has been located, and if one exists it would be the earliest technical file on the panel. - What is the exact fee-inclusive total? Sotheby's published 92.2 million dollars and The Art Newspaper 92.1 million; both are consistent with 92,184,000, which has not been located printed in full. - Who bought it? The winning bid was taken on the telephone by Sotheby's Russia desk in London and the buyer has never been named. - Where is the panel now? No public location, loan or exhibition has been recorded since 28 January 2021. - How were the pre-1935 links established? Sotheby's gives an unbroken Newborough family descent from about 1790, but the picture only enters the literature in the 1930s, so the earlier chain rests on family tradition and on Sir Thomas Wynn's Tuscan residence rather than on documents named in the catalogue. ## Sources - [1] Sotheby's, lot 15, Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, called Sandro Botticelli, Portrait of a young man holding a roundel, Master Paintings and Sculpture Part I, New York, 28 January 2021. The catalogue entry, giving the medium and dimensions, the full Newborough, Sabin, Merton and Christie's 1982 provenance, the exhibition record from 1960 to 2020, the literature from 1950 to 2015, Richard Offner's trecento dating of the roundel, the former Giovanni di Pierfrancesco de' Medici title and the range of proposed dates. - [2] Sotheby's press release, 'Sandro Botticelli's Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel sells for record $92.2 million at Sotheby's New York', 28 January 2021. Gives the 92.2 million total, the estimate in excess of 80 million, the previous Botticelli record of 10,442,500 dollars set by the Rockefeller Madonna at Christie's New York in 2013, the transatlantic bidding and the underbidder acting for an Asian collector, and the quotations from Christopher Apostle and George Wachter. - [3] Sotheby's Magazine, 'The Ultimate Renaissance Portrait'. Gives the roundel as an original fourteenth-century work attributed to Bartolommeo Bulgarini showing a male saint blessing, physically inserted into the panel; the parapet and the shadow that sets the disc back into the picture space; the proposed vanitas reading; the uncertain sitter; the condition; and the radiographic and infrared evidence of extensive underdrawing and continuous revision. - [4] The Art Newspaper, 'Botticelli portrait sells for record $92.1m at Sotheby's in New York', 28 January 2021. Gives the hammer of 80 million dollars, the total of 92.1 million, the absence of a guarantee, the thin bidding from 78 to 80 million, the final contest between Lilija Sitnika of the Sotheby's Russia desk and Alexander Bell, the Asian underbidder, the sale by the estate of Sheldon Solow and the 810,000 pound purchase at Christie's in 1982. - [5] Wikimedia Commons file page for the lead plate, carrying the Sotheby's statement that the roundel is an original fourteenth-century work attributed to Bartolommeo Bulgarini inserted into the panel, with the medium, dimensions and dating. - [6] Wikimedia Commons file page for the Uffizi Portrait of a Man with a Medal of Cosimo the Elder, giving the accession number 1890:1488, the dimensions of 58 x 45 cm, the dating of about 1474 and the descent from the estate of Cardinal Carlo de' Medici, with the Polo Museale Fiorentino and Web Gallery of Art references. - [7] Wikimedia Commons file page for Botticelli's Man of Sorrows, recording the sale at Sotheby's on 27 January 2022 at 45,419,700 dollars with the Sotheby's lot page as its source. - [8] Wikimedia Commons file page for the Bulgarini Crucifixion at Huis Bergh, dated Siena about 1335 to 1340, used as comparison material for the hand attributed to the inserted roundel. - [9] Iconotheca, 'What a Sleeper Is, and Why They Still Happen', the market article this record extends. 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