# Portrait of Christopher Columbus [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [ALTISSIMO, Cristofano dell']() - Date: 1551-1600 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 59 x 42 cm ## Commentary Christopher Columbus \(c. 1451-1506\) was a navigator, colonizer and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere. This portrait was painted half a century after his death. There are no certain contemporary images of the navigator, who was only one among many when he first set out in ships funded in part by Medici money. ## Related artworks - [Alchitrof, Emperor of Ethiopia]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()