Ritratto di Fabrizio Salvaresio

Titian signed and dated this in 1558, when he was around 70 and the most sought-after portraitist in Europe. His sitter was no prince but a Venetian merchant, Fabrizio Salvaresio, shown at 50 in a fur-lined coat, prosperous and sure of himself. On the table behind him sits a clock, an expensive mechanical object Titian used in several portraits to mark a man of standing. In the lower corner a boy leans in with a bunch of flowers, a detail read as a nod to the slave trade that ran through Salvaresio's business. The Latin inscription on the panel behind him gives the man's name, his age, and the year, set out like a plaque.