Portrait of a Man

Turn this small panel over and there is a faded inscription on the back, sixteenth-century handwriting that reads, in part, by the hand of Master Zorzi of Castelfranco. Zorzi is Giorgione, and that scrap of writing is much of the reason the portrait carries his name. It matters because Giorgione is one of the great question marks of art. He worked in Venice in the years around 1500 to 1510, made the private portrait feel quiet and inward, and then died young, most likely of plague, at about thirty. He signed almost nothing and left few certain paintings, so nearly everything given to him is argued over, this panel included. The date scratched on it has been read as 1506, 1508 and 1510. A young man in a dark coat looks out and a little to the side, one hand laid on a stone ledge at the lower edge of the panel.