Ritratto di un gentiluomo

Around 1520 Titian was becoming the most sought-after painter in Venice. Giovanni Bellini, the old master who had led the city's art for a generation, had died in 1516, and the field was suddenly open. This unnamed gentleman belongs to that moment. We no longer know who he was, but Titian gives him the quiet confidence of a man used to being looked at, turned slightly, emerging from a dark ground with the warmth of real skin. Titian worked freely here, the brushwork left visible, so that up close the face loosens into patches of colour and only settles into a man as you step back.