Portrait of a Gentleman

Around 1515 to 1520, when this panel was painted, Baldassare Castiglione was at work on The Book of the Courtier, the handbook of how a gentleman should look and behave, and its word for effort hidden under apparent ease was sprezzatura. The museum describes this young man's air in almost the same terms, an affected nonchalance, and every object he wears is chosen to be read. The medal on his cap carries his personal emblem, a tamed lion, with a line from the Psalms, probasti et cognovisti, Lord, you have searched me and known me, and two Greek letters, epsilon and tau, on a scroll above the animal. Both his hands rest on a precious sword. Its pommel shows the story of Mucius Scaevola, the young Roman who held his right hand in a fire to show an enemy king what Romans were made of, and who was afterwards called the left-handed. The gentleman wears his sword on the right, the museum notes, so he too was left-handed. Nothing on the panel tells us who he was. In the 19th century the Torlonia family, who owned it, believed it was by Holbein, and the name of Bartolomeo Veneto came later, from the art historian Adolfo Venturi.