Retrato de Evangelista Scappi

Before he was a painter, Francesco Francia worked in metal. In Bologna around 1500 he was a goldsmith and medallist who ran the city mint, striking coins and cutting dies, and he came to painting relatively late. That training shows here. The sitter, a Bolognese named Evangelista Scappi, stands at half length in a plain black coat and hat against a dark ground, and every edge is handled with a metalworker's exactness, the folds of cloth, the line of the jaw, the letter he holds up against his chest. There is no landscape and no display of wealth, only a man and the paper in his hand. That raised letter is the single prop he is allowed, a quiet sign that his standing rested on business and correspondence rather than on show.