Portrait of a young Man

A green curtain hangs behind this young man, and where it parts you can see out to a stretch of water, most likely the Venetian lagoon. Lorenzo Lotto painted the portrait around 1526, soon after he came back to Venice following years of work in Bergamo, the mainland town where he'd built his reputation. The sitter is unnamed, dressed in sober black, his face turned slightly, watchful and a little melancholy in the way Lotto's portraits often are. Lotto had a gift for making a stranger from five centuries ago feel like a specific, moody person rather than a type. Later collectors prized the picture. By 1638 it hung in the great Roman gallery of the marquess Vincenzo Giustiniani.