Portrait of a Man

Portrait of a Man from around 1520 at the Budapest Museum shows Moretto's early portrait style. Even in his early work, the distinctive silvery palette and psychological directness that characterize his portraiture are evident. His religious works possess a grave, introspective dignity that set them apart from the more theatrical tendencies of contemporary Venetian painting. Moretto da Brescia's portraits are among the finest productions of northern Italian Renaissance portraiture, distinguished by a combination of Venetian atmospheric warmth, Lombard precision in the rendering of costume and surface, and a psychological directness that seems to anticipate the later portrait tradition of his follower Giovanni Battista Moroni. His life-size full-length portrait of a young man in the National Gallery, London, is often cited as the earliest surviving example of a full-length secular portrait in European painting, and its combination of dignity and observation established the format that would dominate European portraiture for the next century.

The portrait presents the sitter with Moretto's developing silvery palette and direct observation. The careful rendering of features creates a compelling character study.