Portrait of a Man

Andrea del Sarto's Portrait of a Man from 1528-29 is a late work painted in the final two years of the artist's life, when the plague would claim him in 1530 at only forty-five. By this period Andrea was the dominant figure in Florentine painting — Vasari famously called him the 'faultless painter' for his technical perfection — and his portraits demonstrate the High Renaissance synthesis of Leonardo's atmospheric sfumato, Raphael's compositional clarity, and his own characteristic warm Tuscan colorism. The direct gaze and the subtle modeling of the face show his mastery of the psychological portrait, and the handling of light demonstrates why contemporaries considered his technique unequalled. The identity of the sitter is unknown, but the painting is among the most penetrating male portraits in the Florentine tradition.

Del Sarto's oil on canvas (transferred from wood) demonstrates his supreme mastery of sfumato and tonal modeling, with the sitter's features emerging from soft shadow with the effortless technical perfection that characterized his work.