Presunto ritratto di Cesare Borgia (1475-1507).

This presumed portrait of Cesare Borgia, dating from around 1516, depicts the notorious son of Pope Alexander VI who was both celebrated and feared as a military leader and political schemer. The attribution and identification remain debated, but the portrait reflects the powerful Roman portraiture tradition. Sebastiano del Piombo, born Sebastiano Luciani in Venice around 1485 and active in Rome from 1511 until his death in 1547, occupied one of the most interesting positions in sixteenth-century Italian painting: trained in the Venetian tradition under Giorgione and influenced by the young Titian, he subsequently became the closest collaborator of Michelangelo in Rome, receiving figure compositions from the great Florentine that he executed with his Venetian command of color and atmosphere. The resulting fusion — Venetian surface and Roman form — was his most distinctive contribution to the tradition. His appointment as keeper of the Papal Seal (Piombo) in 1531 brought him financial security but somewhat reduced his artistic output in the final decades of his career.

The portrait demonstrates the monumental approach to male portraiture characteristic of Sebastiano's Roman period, with a dark tonal palette and commanding physical presence.