Portrait of a Man

In the lands of Venice a gold chain could be an honour from the Republic itself, given for service, and a man who received one wanted it seen. The museum thinks that is probably why this portrait exists. The award of the chain was the occasion, and Orlando Flacco painted the man wearing it.

The picture is built almost entirely out of the dark of the background. Against it only a few things stand out, the light of the face, the hands and the gold of the chain, like separate points of tension, as the museum puts it. Flacco was a portrait specialist in Verona, and the museum sees in this canvas Venetian painting combined with a northern sharpness of observation. Its quality once had it attributed to Titian and to Lotto.