Portrait of a man

This small panel dates from 1546, near the start of Tintoretto's career, when he was about 28 and still making his name in Venice. Portraiture was steady work for a young painter, and it is where he sharpened a manner that would run through the rest of his life: a face brought up out of near-total darkness, lit so the features press forward while the background falls away to nothing. The sitter is unknown, one of the many Venetians who paid to be recorded. There is no setting, no coat of arms, nothing to say who he was beyond the expression on his face. A likeness this plain and this small was made to be kept at home rather than hung for show, which is part of why the man's name went unrecorded.