A man with a characterful head looks out at us engagingly. His features are carefully described – small eyes with pointed stare, a bulging nose, heart-shaped lips, a double chin and receding hairline. The identity of the sitter is unknown but his dress, with elegant fur trim across the front of the jacket and a delicate fringed tie around the collar, indicates that he is quite affluent.

The paint has been swiftly applied, with the brushstrokes remaining visible in a number of areas: see, for example, around the eyes where the daubs of paint indicate the socket and eyelid, or the parallel strokes suggesting shading on the underside of the chin. The loose, impressionistic technique is that of fresco and results here in great freshness and immediacy. Although fresco painting is usually associated with a fixed wall surface, portable works on wicker, slate or, as here, terracotta tiles, were quite common in Florence. A famous precedent is Andrea del Sarto’s self portrait, mentioned by the biographer Giorgio Vasari and now in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, which is painted on a tile. The rapid and fluid brushstrokes displayed throughout this picture demonstrate the freedom of execution achieved through the fresco medium.

The painting entered the collection in 1921 as a work by Guido Reni. The name of Franceschini, one of the most famous and prolific fresco painters in seventeenth-century Florence, was first associated with the painting in 1929. The painting is now considered to be definitely by him.