ROSSO FIORENTINO
(b. 1494, Firenze, d. 1540, Paris)

A Young Man

1517-18
Oil on poplar, 82 x 60 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

This portrait of a young man is characteristic of the Mannerist phase of Florentine painting in the first third of the sixteenth century. The sitter's languid hands and relaxed coiffure have nothing to do with his sharp gaze, undiminished by a landscape background totally at odds with the sitter's decidedly urban toughness. Strips later added all around diminish the sense of tension that is one of Rosso's hallmarks.