Ritratto di un uomo malato

The title is not a diagnosis, only a nickname the picture picked up for the man's pale skin and heavy, melancholy stare. Nobody knows who he was. What makes the painting unusual is how long it took to work out who made it. For centuries the Uffizi listed it as a Leonardo. Then it was reassigned to Sebastiano del Piombo, later to the circle of Lorenzo Lotto, and only after a cleaning in 1975 was it finally settled on the young Titian, working around 1514. He was in his mid-twenties then, sharpening the kind of searching, psychological portrait that would soon make him the most wanted face-painter in Europe. The sitter still looks out warily, one hand resting on the ledge before him, giving nothing away.