Portrait of Gerolamo (?) Barbarigo

The sleeve arrives before the face. Its broad quilted surface pushes across the lower part of the picture, while the man turns over his shoulder to meet our gaze. His elbow rests on a stone ledge between his space and ours. Titian painted this portrait around 1510, early in his career in Venice. The sitter is probably a member of the Barbarigo family, perhaps Gerolamo, though his identity remains uncertain. Earlier suggestions that he was the poet Ariosto or Titian himself are no longer accepted. Look at the raised eyebrow and the way the shadowed shoulder blends into the grey background. The turn of the head feels momentary, while the large sleeve gives the body weight. Titian combines a strong physical presence with an expression that remains difficult to interpret. The pose became influential. Rembrandt adapted it in his Self Portrait at the Age of 34, also in this collection. Comparing the two makes it possible to follow an idea from a Venetian portrait into an artist’s presentation of himself more than a century later.