Various identities for the richly dressed, contemplative young man in this portrait have been proposed but none with any certainty. The mood of the subject and the diffused, gentle play of light over the broadly painted surfaces are strongly reminiscent of Titian’s Venetian contemporary Giorgione. In many ways, the Frick portrait epitomizes a new tendency in Italian Renaissance portraiture in which the depiction is intended less as a description of the sitter than as an encounter with them. A rich contribution by artist Elizabeth Peyton accompanies an illuminating essay by Giulio Dalvit which addresses the many questions of provenance, chronology, attribution and of who this mysterious young man might be.
