An Old Man holding a Pilgrim-Bottle

For most of its time in Britain this old man was taken for a Spaniard. A label on the back says he belonged to Louis-Pierre de Montbrun, a general in Napoleon's army in Spain, and in the Cook collection at Richmond the canvas passed as a Velázquez. Later opinion moved it to northern Italy, close to Giacomo Ceruti and Giacomo Francesco Cipper, Lombard painters of beggars and vagabonds. The National Gallery now gives it to Pietro Bellotti, probably in the 1650s, when members of the Spanish court in Venice and Milan were ordering his work.

He leans on a crutch in patched rags and holds an earthenware pilgrim-bottle, with the cords for tying it to a traveller's waist hanging along its side. His eyes go down to a globe painted with a country inn at dusk, perhaps a hint at the wisdom of an old traveller who has seen the world.