Portrait of Fra Teodoro of Urbino as Saint Dominic

Giovanni Bellini was around 85 when he signed this in 1515, and it is his last known portrait; he died the following year, having dominated Venetian painting for half a century. The sitter was a real man, a Dominican friar named Teodoro of Urbino, whose name is carved on the marble ledge, but changes under the paint show Bellini reworking him partway into Saint Dominic, so the picture is at once a living likeness and a holy image. It is nearly life-size, larger than any other portrait he made. By this date much younger Venetians like Titian were painting looser, more natural faces, and you can feel the old man reaching for that softness while keeping the still, sculpted gravity that had made his name.