Portrait of Cardinal Reginald Pole

This 1544 portrait of Cardinal Reginald Pole depicts the English cardinal who was a key figure in the Counter-Reformation and a candidate for the papacy. Pole, a cousin of Henry VIII who opposed the English Reformation, spent much of his life in Rome. Pole's subsequent career as Archbishop of Canterbury under Mary I and his role in the attempted Catholic restoration of England adds retrospective significance to Sebastiano's 1544 portrait of this controversial figure.

The late portrait shows Sebastiano's fully mature manner, with simplified forms and a dark, brooding palette that emphasize the cardinal's intellectual gravity and spiritual authority.