Portrait of an Old Man with Gloves

Lorenzo Lotto is one of the few Renaissance painters whose own account book survives, a ledger where he noted his commissions, his prices and his debts as his career drifted away from wealthy Venice toward smaller towns. Around 1543, newly arrived in Treviso, he recorded portraits of several local men. One of them is probably this sombre older sitter, holding a pair of gloves against a dark ground, though scholars still argue over which name in the book belongs to the face. The candour is typical of Lotto: no flattery and no grandeur, just a tired man looking slightly past us. The picture entered the Brera in Milan in 1859.