Introduction
Two years ago, I visited a private collection in Belgium to look at a painting said to be by Anthony van Dyck. The painting was not worth the visit, but my curiosity was piqued by another piece in the collection, a self-portrait by the looks of it, painted by an unidentified artist (fig. 1). Because it was covered with layers of dark varnish, I suggested to the owner that he have it cleaned. Unexpectedly, the restorer uncovered the full signature of the artist, “Francesco Mezzara,” as well as a date, 1806.

As I began to research the painting, it seemed at first impossible to retrace Mezzara. It was not until I checked—by a lucky coincidence—a database on the history of law that I came across his name. Further research revealed not only that his self-portrait is the only known painting by the artist to have been preserved, but that Mezzara was instrumental in changing New York state constitutional law.

Fig. 1, Francesco Mezzara, Self-portrait, 1806. Oil on canvas. Private collection, Belgium. © Bruno Vandermeulen.

The Portrait
In his self-portrait (oil on canvas, 47.1 x 38.7 cm; fig. 1), Mezzara presents himself to the viewer with a self-assured demeanor. His eyes meet the viewer’s gaze, and with the index finger of his right hand he points to a lengthy inscription on his lapel. In the same hand, he holds seven thin brushes, their hairs dipped in different color paints.

The artist seems to be past the age of youth. His hairline is receding and his temples and sideburns are graying. He is dressed in a moss-green coat over a white shirt. The shirt’s wide raised collar and open cuffs reflect the fashions of the early nineteenth century. The artist painted his portrait several years before he married in Paris shortly before 1813.[1] Because there is no evidence about the exact date when Mezzara moved to France, it remains unclear whether he received his training in Italy or France. But the style of the self-portrait suggests that Mezzara was familiar with late eighteenth-century neo-classical portraits, notably by Pompei Batoni (1708–87) and followers such as Gaspare Landi (1756–1830).[2] This suggests that he may have studied in Rome with an unidentified artist.

Fig. 2, Francesco Mezzara, Self-portrait (detail with signature), 1806. Oil on canvas. Private collection, Belgium. © Bruno Vandermeulen.

Who was Francesco Mezzara?
A few salient facts about the painter Francesco Mezzara are provided by the inscription on the lapel of the artist’s coat: “Francesco Figlio di Gioseppe e di Angiola Romano se fece TA 1806” (fig. 2).[3] The inscription informs us that Francesco Mezzara came from Rome and that his parents were Gioseppe and Angiola Mezzara.[4] Little is known about his parents, his youth in Rome, or his artistic training. All we know is that at some point he moved to France,[5] where he is known to have married shortly before 1813. The Parisian register of births, marriages, and deaths indicates that “Thomas- François-Gaspard Mezzara, peintre d'histoire” married Marie-Angélique Foulon (Paris, 1793−Paris, 1868).[6] According to her death certificate, she was, like her husband, an artiste peintre.[7] In 1813 the couple lived at 16 rue d’Enfer in Paris. As far as can be ascertained, the painter first traveled to New York in February 1817.[8] It appears that he stayed in the city for less than a year, which was long enough, however, for him to get into legal trouble, resulting in a trial (more about which below). In 1818, a year after the trial, the Mezzaras were registered as living in Paris again, this time at 89 rue de Charonne.[9] But some time in 1819, they seem to have once again traveled to New York, where the couple’s first son, Joseph-Ernest-Amédée Mezzara was born on March 2, 1820 (d. Paris, 1901).[10] Shortly before 1825, the young family returned to France, where the next two children were born. Pierre-Alexandre-Louis Mezzara saw the light in Evreux on December 9, 1825 (d. Paris, January 30, 1883)[11] and his sister, Marie-Adèle Angiola Mezzara, named after her paternal grandmother, was born in Paris on August 1, 1828.[12] It is possible that a second daughter, Clémentine, was born to the couple some time later. We have no biographical information about her, but in 1847, one Clémentine Mezzara was living at 11 Quai Napoléon, the same address where Francesco Mezzara and his wife are known to have lived between 1837 and 1848.[13] The prestigious address suggests that by then the family was prosperous, though the source of their prosperity is not exactly known.[14]

Fig. 3, John Deare, The Judgment of Jupiter, 1787–88. Marble relief. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles. © LACMA.

We do know that Madame Mezzara continued to work as an artist even after her children were born. Living in Evreux in 1825, for example, she produced two portrait drawings of prominent local residents,[15] and she regularly exhibited her portraits at the Salon.[16] But what about Mezzara himself? What works of art did he produce? It is curious that, with the exception of the self-portrait, we cannot attribute a single work of art to him. In the 1820s, he evidently taught Italian in New York,[17] while trying at the same time to exhibit his works of art. In 1823, a certain “M. Mezzara” exhibited a portrait at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.[18] But despite this and perhaps other exhibits, Mezzara did not succeed in establishing a reputation in the US, which may explain why he returned to France shortly afterwards. There is only one clue regarding a change of course in Mezzara's professional activities. The archives of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris contain two letters written by Mezzara. The first is an introductory letter addressed to “Monsieur Quatremère de Quincy, Secrétaire Perpetuel de L'Académie des beaux arts.” This was undoubtedly the art theorist and historiographer Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy (1755­−1849), who acted as “permanent secretary” to the Parisian Academy in the period 1816−­1839. Mezzara’s second letter, with the salutation, “Messieurs,” was addressed to the members of the Academy. The letters are undated, but it can be inferred from the context that they were written in 1828.[19] What were they about? François Mezzara (he used the French spelling of his first name, here) wished to draw the Academy members’ attention to a marble relief “originating from Rome,” which had been made some thirty years earlier by the British neoclassical sculptor John Deare (1759 − 1798) (fig. 3). He was asking the Academy’s members to supply an “approval” for the relief, which he was considering selling in the capacity of an art dealer. We do not know whether Mezzara received the approval or if he sold the relief, which today is at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. But it seems likely that Mezzara, later in life, operated as an art dealer of antiquities and, perhaps, contemporary art as well. The Academy’s records refer to him as an archéologue,[20] which suggests that he may have excavated or bought antiquities in Italy and sold them in the international market.

Mezzara died in Paris on February 3, 1845.[21] After his death, his wife remained active as a painter, exhibiting at the Salon until 1849.[22] Both their sons became artists. Joseph Mezzara became a student of the neoclassicist painter Jean-Pierre Granger (1779−1840), the sculptor David d'Angers (1788­−1856), and the painter Ary Scheffer (1795−1858), all important artists of the Romantic School.[23] Between 1852 and 1875 he submitted works of art—mainly marble portrait busts of prominent contemporary figures—to the Paris salon.[24] Pierre, also known as Pietro, achieved international success as a sculptor, most notably in the United States.[25]

The Mezzara Trial
Francesco Mezzara is remembered not primarily as an artist or as an art dealer, but for his role in a precedent-setting legal case, which led to a change in New York State constitutional law.

On August 4, 1817, in New York City Hall, Mezzara was convicted of “criminal libel.”[26] Mayor Jacob Radcliff (1764–1842) presided over the trial, which issued from a conflict between a prominent lawyer and the artist, who had arrived in New York six months earlier. The lawyer, Aaron H. Palmer (1792–1863), was described as “a counsellor and attorney at law in this city, and a master in chancery and public notary.”[27] He accused the portrait painter Francesco Mezzara of bringing him “into public hatred, ridicule and contempt,” claiming that Mezzara “falsely and maliciously did make, utter and publish a certain picture, portrait or resemblance of the said Aaron H. Palmer with the ears of an Ass.”[28] It took the jury all night to arrive at their verdict against Mezzara, who was sentenced to pay a $100 fine.

Fig. 4, John Wesley Jarvis, Portrait of Aaron Haight Palmer, 1819. Oil on canvas. Quidley & Company, Boston. © Quidley & Company Boston.

The New-York City-Hall Recorder for August 1817 published a record of the entire proceedings, down to the smallest detail.[29] Ever since then, “Mezzara's Case” has been regarded as one of the cases ushering in a new stage in New York State constitutional law in which the definition of libel was not restricted to written statements. Forms of “symbolic expression,” such as paintings and caricatures, could also transgress the bounds of acceptability and constitute criminal acts.[30] While the case has attracted the scrutiny of legal historians on multiple occasions, it seems clear that the conviction brought an end to Francesco Mezzara’s career and hence to his role in art history. An attorney with an interest in the history of the New York constitution has recently claimed that “the main protagonists at the trial—Mezzara and Palmer—seem to have left no recognizable traces behind.”[31] But the self-portrait of Mezzara and a portrait of Aaron Palmer, painted two years after the trial by the leading New York portrait painter, John Wesley Jarvis (1780; fig. 4)[32] bely that statement.

Aaron H. Palmer met Francesco Mezzara at a dinner party thrown by “Baron Quenette” or Nicolas-Marie Quinette, baron de Rochemont (Paris, 1762-Brussels, 1821), a French politician and aristocrat, at his home in New York. Mezzara was introduced to Palmer as “a man of genius and an eminent connoisseur in the fine arts.”[33] At that time, the “artist from Rome”[34] had only been in the city for six months. During the dinner, Mezzara proposed to paint Palmer’s portrait “and was very solicitous that he should sit for that purpose; saying that there was a very striking peculiarity in the forehead, and that Palmer’s head was perfect for a head study—expressing it in French as “une tête d'étude.”[35] Palmer must have felt flattered by this remark, and under some pressure from Mezzara, he accepted the artist’s proposal. When he saw the portrait in an unfinished state, Palmer did not express any dissatisfaction.[36] Yet when Mezzara brought the completed, framed painting to the Academy of Arts, where Palmer and some of his friends had an opportunity to inspect it, the attorney was apparently less satisfied with his portrait; he “considered it as unworthy of an artist of eminence; and his friends pronounced it to be a caricature.” His friends’ opinion seems to have played a decisive role. In a subsequent encounter with the painter on Broadway, Palmer told Mezzara that he was “much displeased and disappointed,” but, being a man of his word, he would not hesitate to pay the painter. He “offered and tendered him the full charge for the painting, which was $65.”[37]

Palmer honored his agreement with Mezzara but nevertheless profoundly insulted the painter by telling him to keep the portrait. Mezzara asked Palmer to put this in writing, and he did so without delay.[38] The artist, “considering his professional skill decried,” accused Palmer of wounding his feelings and “self-love” and refused to accept the money offered. Later that day, after the first heat of rage had cooled, Mezzara changed his mind and sent a young man named Thomas Blanchet to collect the money from Palmer. But now the attorney refused to pay for the portrait, because he had offered to do so earlier and the painter had declined. Mezzara, unwilling to accept this outcome, brought a legal action against his sitter. This suit was unsuccessful and Mezzara was ordered to pay $24 in court fees.[39] But their conflict did not end there. On the evening of the verdict, Mezzara ran into the attorney again on Broadway. Palmer was with two friends at the time, Barent Gardenier (1776–1822), a lawyer and US Congressman of Dutch origin, and Isaac M. Ely, Esq.[40] In response to Mezzara’s belligerent behavior, Palmer informed the painter that he owed him nothing, since he had initially made such a generous offer. Nevertheless, the painter managed to persuade the three friends to come to his studio, where he kept Palmer’s portrait. A discussion ensued about the resemblance (or lack thereof) between the model and his portrait, “wherein he [Mezzara] was very abusive, (finding that those gentlemen did not concur with him in opinion respecting the likeness).” As the men were about to leave the room, Mezzara picked up a piece of chalk and drew “Ass’s ears” on the head in the picture, threatening to add them in oil paint and then exhibit the painting on Broadway.[41] Barent Gardenier’s later testimony corroborated Palmer’s account of the incident. Gardenier confirmed that the three men had visited Mezzara’s room in Reed Street, “where he exhibited to them the picture for their opinion or approbation.” He also attested that “the language of the defendant [Mezzara] towards Mr. Palmer was intemperate.” He described Mezzara’s threat regarding the donkey’s ears and added that the artist had evidently made this threat “with a design of wounding Palmer’s feelings.” The report continues: “Palmer however kept his temper, and seemed to smile, but the witness [Gardenier] thinks it gave him pain.”[42] No doubt Palmer had already decided that their dispute would not end there.

He called on the services of a well-known painter of the day, the aforementioned John Wesley Jarvis. At Palmer’s request, Jarvis confirmed “that he is a portrait painter by profession; that he had seen the picture said to be the likeness of Mr. Palmer, before it was disfigured, in Mezzara’s room; that it was an imperfect likeness, and rather a botch than the performance of an accomplished artist.”[43] Palmer had probably chosen this expert witness very carefully. In the early 19th century Jarvis shared with Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828) the distinction of being “New York's leading portraitist” and had “received the plum commission to paint six large portraits of the heroes of the war of 1812” for the City Hall.[44] His authority as a portrait painter was incontestable.[45] Jarvis’s testimony at the trial probably wounded Francesco Mezzara more deeply than Palmer’s lack of appreciation.

When the deputy sheriff, Jonathan L. Brewster, visited the painter in July 1817 to collect the $24 in court fees,[46] Mezzara claimed that “he had no other property to satisfy the execution except the picture . . . which the witness [the deputy sheriff] recognized as the likeness of Mr. Palmer.”[47] The only possible course of action was to sell the painting. The Frenchman John Cheneau, a friend of Mezzara’s, acted as guarantor for the delivery of the picture on the day of the sale, which was set for July 30, 1817. When Brewster arrived to pick up the portrait that day, “on calling for the picture, [he] found it disfigured by the appendage of Ass’s ears to the head.”[48] According to the later testimony of the Frenchwoman Maria Brunet, Francesco Mezzara had previously asked the sheriff “if he could be injured by reason of the transformation above mentioned, and the sheriff answered in the negative.”[49] The sale of the painting attracted unusually great interest, and by that time Palmer had caught wind of what had happened to the portrait. He instructed the deputy sheriff to arrange for up to $30 to be bid so that the painting could be destroyed; a clerk in the auction house placed the bid.[50] But Palmer had miscalculated. A friend of Mezzara’s bid $40 and acquired the painting. Mezzara immediately paid his outstanding debt of $24 to the sheriff and believed the matter closed.[51]

But Palmer, ever the attorney, would not let it rest, and brought a lawsuit against Mezzara. This fascinating and highly significant case involved arguments explicating the difference between the laughable and the ridiculous.[52] The opening section of the report on this trial in the New-York City-Hall Recorder refers to the Elements of Criticism (1762) by Henry Home, Lord Kaimes (1696–1782), “a judge in the Supreme Courts of Scotland” and a pillar of the Scottish Enlightenment. Home’s proposed distinction between a laughable and a ridiculous object forms the central theme of the arguments that follow: “And he further observes, that an object that is neither risible nor improper lies not open, in any quarter, to an attack from ridicule; that an irregular use made of a talent for wit and ridicule, cannot long impose on mankind: it cannot stand the test of correct and delicate taste; and truth will at last prevail even with the vulgar (1 El. Crit. P. 306).”[53] Although the court acknowledged that “there are some laughable incidents peculiar to this case,” it denied “that ridicule is attributable to the conduct of Mr. Palmer.” Mezzara was charged not only with having added the donkey’s ears to Palmer’s portrait and then offering the painting for sale, but also with asking the auctioneer to exhibit it “in a more conspicuous place, that it might be inspected by the people.” Moreover, he had placed an advertisement in a New York newspaper, the Republican Chronicle, to announce the sale:

Curious Sheriff's Sale. We have been requested to mention, that there will be sold, this forenoon, at public vendue, at No. 133 Water-street, a PICTURE intended for the likeness of a gentleman in this city, who ordered it painted. But as the gentleman disclaimed it, it remained the property of the painter . . . who is an eminent artist from Rome [and] has decorated it with a pair of long ears, such as usually worn by a certain stupid animal. The goods can be inspected previous to the sale.[54]

In short, the painter had done everything in his power to bring the dispute to public attention and to pique the curiosity of the people of New York. The advertisement was written by Samuel Woodworth (1784−1842),[55] an American author, poet and literary journalist, who may have felt sympathy for Mezzara’s foolhardy attempt to obtain justice.

The case for the prosecution was made by two attorneys, a Mr. Wilkins and William M. Price:[56]

1. Although the portrait was not a perfect likeness of Aaron Palmer, “it so far resembled him that all his acquaintance knew that he was the person whom the picture designed to represent. The appendage which was superadded, was manifestly added to hold him up to public ridicule.”

2. The testimony by Gardenier, corroborated by Ely, showed that the painter intended to take revenge on Mr. Palmer by adding donkey’s ears to the picture, initially in chalk and later in oil paint.[57]

3. At the sale, he had the painting placed where it would be the center of attention, and the advertisement drew even more people than would otherwise have attended. Even after the auction, once Mezzara had regained possession of the picture, he would not stop showing it to as many people as possible: “He exhibited the picture in a triumphant manner in the streets.” Wilkins spoke of “the atrocity of such conduct” and “emphatically enquired, Where is this conduct to stop? What is to deter the defendant [Mezzara] from exhibiting this picture in our streets, again and again, but the wholesome restraint of a verdict?” Wilkins went on to warn the jury that if they found Mezzara guilty, the same fate might await them: “He will draw your pictures with his Ass's ears.”[58]

4. When Palmer relinquished his rights to the portrait to Mezzara, this did not imply that the painter was permitted to perform unlawful acts with it. Furthermore the painter drew the ears of an ass to the picture in chalk and used “intemperate language to Palmer.” The prosecution interpreted this as “a circumstance, manifesting the mischievous intention of the defendant.”[59]

J. C. P. Sampson was the painter’s primary defense attorney, and the report tells us that he brought “much energy and humor” to this role. His defense was based on four contentions:

1. “That this was either a likeness of Mr. Palmer, or it was not a likeness. If a likeness, it was his duty to have paid the painter; if not, the appendage of Ass's ears, on a picture not a likeness, was not a libel on him more than on any other individual.”

2. Mezzara was not guilty of “a publication of the picture.” The sheriff, acting as the agent of A. Palmer, should not have taken the portrait to the auction room on the day of sale, because the agreement pertained to a different portrait: namely, a portrait without donkey’s ears.

3. Palmer had claimed that the portrait was not his likeness and had given the painter the right to do whatever he pleased with it.

4. The painter had invested a great deal of time and money in painting the portrait and therefore had the right, as soon as it became his property, to seek the best possible price for it. If he wanted to transform the painting in question into a picture of King Midas—“he actually intended to metamorphose the picture into a representation of Midas; and was not actuated by any malicious or mischievous intention towards Mr. Palmer”[60]—then he had every right to do so. The defense added that even if Mezzara had harbored malicious intentions, it was important to recall that he was a foreigner, “unacquainted with the severity of our laws on the subject of libel.”[61]

In his jury instructions, the mayor offered the following conclusion: although “the libel, charged in the indictment, was in nature private, and, therefore, not important in a public point of view, yet the case, by reason of its peculiar nature, required their serious attention. Any publication, picture, or sign, made with a mischievous or malicious design, which holds up any person to public contempt or ridicule, is denominated a libel” [author’s italics]. In recapitulating the various arguments made, the mayor instructed the jury to consider that the final portrait was not the portrait that Palmer could reasonably have expected. He was unconvinced by the claim that the painter had wanted to transform the portrait into a scene of the mythical King Midas.[62] The jury took a long time to reach its verdict. It began deliberating at 11 p.m. and returned a verdict against the defendant the next day at 9 a.m.: “To see a pair of Ass's ears attached to the picture of any individual, however respectable, however worthy and venerable, he may be for learning or piety, it must be confessed, is a laughable object. But unless such individual has been guilty of some gross folly or impropriety, this appendage, attached to his representation, is incompatible with our ideas of moral fitness; the libel does not apply to the character of the man; and though we may laugh, we cannot ridicule.”[63]

Mezzara was ordered to pay a fine of $100.[64] Since he was not a wealthy man, and a “stranger” to boot, he did not receive any “more rigorous punishment.”[65]

Since Mezzara’s conviction was based upon the court having equated “symbolic expression” with “verbal expression,” the trial of 1817 acquired great historical importance.[66] In his quest for the historical roots of the view, which is still not always accepted to this day, that “symbolic expression . . . is basically functionally identical to expression through words and should thus be treated the same,”[67] Eugene Volokh cites the report in the 1817 New-York City-Hall Recorder. He writes: “The report of Mezzara's Case (1817), apparently the earliest American case involving symbolic libel there—a painting of the plaintiff with donkey's ears—likewise indicates that free speech and press principles were seen as applying to such symbolic expression.”[68] He ends by noting that the person who had reported on Mezzara’s trial in 1817 “saw nothing odd in treating a painting as protected by free speech and press principles, just as the court saw nothing odd in treating a painting as punishable under libel law principles.”[69] In Mezzara’s, case symbolic expression effectively had been equated with verbal expression. Accepting the equation, it became necessary, moreover, to prove or to deny that the painter’s “expression” was justifiable and inspired by good motives, as would have been the case if the painter would have expressed himself by using words.[70]

The verdict was clear. The motives of the painter Mezzara had not been honorable. By adding the “donkey’s ears”—an act of “symbolic expression”—he was attempting to take his revenge on his unenthusiastic client, the attorney Aaron H. Palmer. The person who reported on the trial likewise observed, with some sympathy, “if he published and exhibited the picture with good motives and for justifiable ends . . . would he not be justifiable under our statute?”[71]

Fig. 5, Michelangelo, Detail of the ass-eared head of Biagio da Cesena as King Midas in Last Judgment, Hell, 1535–41. Fresco. Sistine Chapel, Rome.

Mezzara’s Gesture in Historical Perspective
The well-documented story of the portrait painter Francesco Mezzara is interesting not only from a legal but also from a cultural-historical vantage point. History teaches us that situations of this kind were not uncommon, although few reached the courts.[72] As a Roman, Mezzara was undoubtedly familiar with the way in which Michelangelo had taken his revenge on the papal master of ceremonies Biagio da Cesena for venturing to criticize the numerous nudes in his fresco of the Last Judgment. The artist depicted his castigator in hell as King Midas and gave him a pair of gigantic donkey’s ears (fig. 5).

We may be sure that Mezzara had visited the Sistine Chapel, and he may have read about the event in Giorgio Vasari’s Lives.[73] We find similar comical tales of “mutilated” portraits in the writings of authors such as Karel van Mander (1604) and Cornelis de Bie (1661). Van Mander gives a spirited account of the way the sixteenth-century painter from Mechlin, Jacques de Poindre (or De Punder) (Mechelen, 1527−Denmark, after 1570) took his revenge on an obstreperous client. De Poindre had been asked to make a portrait of a British captain named Pieter Andries. The artist did not have an easy character, being what the author describes as a “great troublemaker” (een groot brageerder). Jacques de Poindre painted his portrait, but the man was unhappy with it, and left the painting with the artist without paying for it. The portraitist took his revenge by painting prison bars in front of the man’s face, using watercolors. His actions produced rapid results: the captain came and questioned De Poindre’s gesture. De Poindre calmly responded that his visitor would remain “imprisoned” until he had paid for the portrait. The captain immediately handed over the money, and was eager to see the bars disappear. De Poindre took a sponge and wiped them away. That was the end of the matter. The painter had received his payment and the captain decided to keep the portrait after all.[74]

The tale told by the notary Cornelis de Bie, from Lier, is even more similar to the Mezzara case. The story concerns the painter Gillis Mostaert (Hulst, 1528−Antwerp, 1598), who excelled both in depicting “curious models” and in secular and religious history paintings. De Bie tells about “a curious trick” Mostaert played on a nobleman whom he had depicted so skillfully and convincingly that the only thing lacking in the portrait was life and speech. But the nobleman was “stung by self-importance, and maintained that the portrait was not a good likeness, that it was too brown.” He threatened to withhold payment unless Mostaert improved it. But Mostaert felt the client’s response as an insult to his professional pride. He promised to improve the portrait, and then, without touching the face, “gave him a jolly fool’s cap using watercolors.” Having done so, he deliberately publicized the portrait, “standing it outside his door every day.” And since the nobleman was well known in the city, “all passers-by were astonished to see such a respectable man wearing a fool’s cap.” Tongues started wagging, and the nobleman soon heard of the matter. Irate, he set off to the painter’s house, where he saw “his own likeness in the character of a fool.” He flew into such a rage that he would have murdered the painter on the spot, had he been at home. He then summoned Gillis Mostaert, who came straight away, “undismayed and with a perfectly serene expression,” to ask him what he wanted. When the man asked him “why he had made such a mockery of him, and furthermore made an exhibition of him in the street outside his house,” Mostaert replied that he was astonished to find “that [his client] recognized himself as soon as he was wearing a fool’s cap, having failed to do so when he had been painted as a wise man.” De Bie added, by way of a moralizing conclusion, that one does not acquire self-knowledge until one has been exposed to “the mockery of all the world.”[75] The sixteenth-century captain and the nobleman were both taught chastening lessons by their portraitists, who reversed the customary relationship between patrons and painters by holding their clients up to public ridicule.

When Francesco Mezzara took up a piece of chalk and added donkey’s ears to the painted portrait of Aaron H. Palmer, he was acting in a way that was not unprecedented. But he was ill-prepared for the reaction that his impulsive gesture would generate in New York. Due to the charges that were brought against him, his chances of becoming the portrait painter of New York’s high society were destroyed.

Katlijne Van der Stighelen
katlijne.vanderstighelen[at]kuleuven.be

Acknowledgments: I am grateful to Jan de Meere for numerous inspiring discussions. I should also like to thank Bert Demarsin for his interest and his critical comments on the article. The article is translated from the Dutch by Beverley Jackson. My thanks to Robert Alvin Adler for his meticulous editing.

This article is dedicated to my (lawyer) son Govert Coppens.