Man with a Golden Chain

Nobody now knows who this Venetian gentleman was. In the 1550s a heavy gold chain like the one across his chest was rarely mere ornament. It was usually a gift of honour, from a prince or a city, worn so that people would recognise the distinction. Tintoretto, who ran a busy Venice workshop and had a name for working fast, strips nearly everything else away. Scholars still argue over exactly when he set it down, somewhere around the 1550s. The clothing is black, the background darker still, and a hard light comes in from the left to catch the wary, watchful face and pick out each link of the chain against the shadow.