Milanese School, ca. 1490-1500

Popularized in Renaissance Lombardy under the Visconti, this kind of medal-like portraits, rigidly caught in profile, fell out of fashion at the end of the 15th Century, when Antonello da Messina, Bellini and especially Leonardo da Vinci infused an unprecedented naturalistic quality into the genre. While still formally belonging to an archaic typology, the present work shows a fresh understanding of the sitter's psychology and a subtle rendering of his features, portrayed at 55 years of age, as annotated by the artist at bottom right. The work must be dated around 1500, and is closely comparable to the work of Giovanni Ambrogio de' Predis and an anonymous Lombard portrait, formerly in the collection of André De Hevesy as Bartolomeo Veneto (L. Pagnotta, Bartolomeo Veneto, Florence, 1997, no. D6, ill.).