THE DE BRY PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS.
He claimed that the features corresponded to the written descriptions of Columbus by his contemporaries and accounted for the Flemish ruff, pointed beard, gold chain, and other anachronous accessories, by supposing that these had been added by a later hand. These adornments, however, prevented Jomard’s views gaining any countenance, though he seems to have been confident in his opinion. Irving at the time records his scepticism when Jomard sent him a lithograph of it. Carderera and Feuillet de Conches both reject it.
JOMARD’S PICTURE OF COLUMBUS.
This is a reproduction of the cut in Charton’s Voyageurs, iii. 87.
A similar out-of-date ruff and mustache characterize the likeness at Madrid associated with the Duke of Berwick-Alba, in which the finery of a throne makes part of the picture. The owner had a private plate engraved from it by Rafael Esteve, a copy of which, given by the engraver to Obadiah Rich, who seems to have had faith in it, is now in the Lenox Library.[295]
A picture belonging to the Duke of Veraguas is open to similar objections,—with its beard and armor and ruff; but Muñoz adopted it for his official history, the plate being drawn by Mariano Maella.[296]
A picture of a bedizened cavalier, ascribed to Parmigiano (who was three years old when Columbus died), is preserved in the Museo Borbonico at Naples, and is, unfortunately, associated in this country with Columbus, from having been adopted by Prescott for his Ferdinand and Isabella,[297] and from having been copied for the American Antiquarian Society.[298] It was long since rejected by all competent critics.
A picture in the Senate chamber (or lately there) at Albany was given to the State of New York in 1784 by Mrs. Maria Farmer, a granddaughter of Governor Jacob Leisler, and was said to have been for many years in that lady’s family.[299] There are many other scattered alleged likenesses of Columbus, which from the data at hand it has not been easy to link with any of those already mentioned.[300]