Portrait of a Man

The portrait shows an elderly man seen three-quarters on, with white hair and richly textured bourgeois clothing that may suggest a jurist, according to some readings. He wears a red cap, a jacket of the same colour and a black scarf. The figure stands against a background with Roman ruins and several nude men, a motif Signorelli used in other works and which recalls Piero della Francesca's Death of Adam at Arezzo. The painting is dated to around 1492, a period when the artist was working in Volterra, a city under Florentine control and under Medici patronage, where he produced several religious paintings. Its style is linked to those works, although both the attribution and the date remain tentative. What makes it notable is the blend of influences: close attention to the sitter's face and clothing sits alongside echoes of Netherlandish painting, associated with Hans Memling, and of Domenico Ghirlandaio. Painted in tempera on a poplar panel, it offers a useful view of how late fifteenth-century Italian Renaissance artists absorbed models from elsewhere in Europe.

Painter

Luca Signorelli

Date

1492

Medium

tempera, poplar panel

Dimensions

50 × 32 cm

Museum

Gemäldegalerie Berlin, Berlin

Genre

portrait

Depicts

man

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