Retrato Triplo de um Ourives (Bartolomeo Carpan?)

Here is one man shown three times in a single frame, face on, in profile, and from behind. A century later Van Dyck would use exactly this arrangement to send the likeness of Charles I to Rome, so a sculptor could carve a bust from every side. Lotto painted his version around 1530, and the reason seems more personal than practical. The sitter is thought to be Bartolomeo Carpan, a Venetian goldsmith and a friend of the painter, and the small object he turns toward us was identified after cleaning as a ring box, the tool of his trade. Lotto liked to tuck such clues into his portraits. The painting later passed through the collections of Charles I of England and Philip IV of Spain before settling in Vienna, where it has hung since the 1730s.