This captivating Portrait of Plato (as indicated by his name inscribed along the top of the canvas), a perfect example of Luca Giordano’s early work, takes its place among the formidable gallery of idealised portraits – among them several series of philosophers – painted by the great Neapolitan artist in the footsteps of his teacher Jusepe de Ribera. The subject of ancient philosophers became widespread in Italy, the Low Countries and France, reflecting an interest in Neo-Stoicism. In 1630 Ribera had already painted four such figures for the Duke of Alcalá, and in 1636 he received a commission from Prince Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein for a series of twelve (of which six were still in the family collection until the end of the 1950s).

With his left hand, Plato points to a mirror, steadied on a table with his other hand. The mirror reflects his hand and the side of the table bears the following inscription: “La più gran vitoria / che possa havere / un’uomo è vincere / sé stesso”. This is translation of a passage from Plato’s Laws (I.626) in which Clinias, a Cretan, tells an Athenian that “the victory over self is of all victories the first and best”.

This Portrait of Plato is datable to about 1660, when Luca Giordano’s handling became lighter than it had been in his earliest period, c. 1650.

Our philosopher, depicted half-length, has a furrowed, grave aspect to his face, which the painter sought to convey as expressively as possible – as some have said, almost foreshadowing Goya – and the figure is shown frontally, emerging from a dark background and lit starkly. The aesthetic roots here are clearly Caravaggesque, softened by the legacy of Ribera. The latter is also the source of an emphatic naturalism: facial features marked by deep wrinkles, an unkempt white beard, a rough, half-open shirt, and an old coat sewn with long stitches – all elements that underline the links made by Neo-Stoic thinkers between philosophy and poverty. It was Socrates himself who introduced the wearing of a tribon – the bristly Greek coat worn directly over the skin.

There exist at least two other versions of this portrait: one in the Baratti collection in Naples, the other housed in the Musée de la Cour d’Or in Metz (inv. no. II.439). To understand how much this sort of portrayal meant to Luca Giordano, one should recall that he appears as a philosopher or alchemist in several of his self-portraits. Such is the case, for instance, in the Self-Portrait as Alchemist in the Brera Gallery, Milan, of c. 1650/1653, or the Self-Portrait as Philosopher in the Bromley-Davenport collection at Capesthorne Hall, Macclesfield, Cheshire. This confirms Luca’s involvement in an intellectually stimulating Neapolitan cultural climate which culminated in the creation of the Accademia degli Investiganti in 1663.