Portrait of a man

Around 1490 the most exciting place in Italy to be a painter was Milan, where Ludovico Sforza ruled and money flowed toward artists. Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis was the duke's court portraitist, and when Leonardo da Vinci arrived from Florence in the 1480s he lodged in de Predis's house. The two later worked together on the altarpiece we call the Virgin of the Rocks. This portrait of an unknown man comes from that world. De Predis painted the courtiers of Milan in crisp profile, catching the cut of a cap and the fall of hair with unusual sharpness. He also designed coins and illuminated manuscripts, and that goldsmith's eye for a clean edge shows in the hard line of the sitter's face.