Portrait of a Gentleman

The identity of this portrait has changed more than once. In 1745 it hung in a salon of the Quinta del Duque del Arco, a royal country house at El Pardo outside Madrid, entered on a single line together with 24 other half-length men in assorted dress. The inventory of 1794 described the sitter as a golilla, a man in the stiff white collar worn by Spanish officials, and named the painter as one Antonio Navarrete. A handwritten label still on the stretcher calls him the tutor of Prince Don Carlos, without saying which one. By 1857 the museum was listing the canvas as school of Tintoretto, a man dressed in black. The Prado gives it to Tintoretto himself now and will date it no closer than the 16th century. It is not hanging in the museum either, but on long-term deposit at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Madrid.