Retrato de un hombre

On 9 October 1847 the Duchy of Lucca ceased to exist. Its ruler, Charles Louis of Bourbon, gave up the throne ahead of schedule and the city passed to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The new sovereign, Grand Duke Leopold II, marked the handover by sending Lucca 83 paintings out of the grand-ducal collections in Florence, and those pictures became the core of the gallery in Palazzo Mansi, where this portrait hangs today. It is a Venetian head of about 1550, from the years when Tintoretto kept a busy portrait practice among the officials and merchants of Venice alongside the enormous religious canvases he is better known for. The sitter's name has not come down with the painting. In the Lucca inventory he is number 163.