Portrait of a Gentleman in a black Cap with an elaborate Zazzera.

Portrait of a Gentleman in a Black Cap with an Elaborate Zazzera, by Alvise Vivarini, depicts an unidentified Venetian male sitter wearing the distinctive hairstyle known as the zazzera—a bowl-cut fringe fashionable among young Venetian patricians in the 1470s and 1480s. The precision with which the sitter's hairstyle is described suggests this was a commissioned likeness intended to record the appearance of a specific individual at a moment of fashionable self-presentation. Venetian portrait painting of this period was just establishing its conventions, influenced both by Antonello da Messina's three-quarter-view formula and by Flemish panel portraits.

The sitter is presented in a three-quarter view against a dark, neutral ground, the face modeled in smooth, graduated tone that suggests oil technique adapted from Flemish sources. The black cap and the elaborate hairstyle are described with particular attention, their formal precision contrasting with the relatively flat treatment of the costume below.