We don't know who this man is, though similar collars and beards appear in portraits of the 1560s and 1570s. The painting is on paper, mounted on a walnut panel, and is unfinished. It might have been a study, perhaps for one sitter in a group, or possibly a pattern which the artist kept in his workshop and from which finished portraits could be made as required.
Many of the distortions of the face are those practised by Anthonis Mor. The far eye is out of perspective and too large, the shadow behind the nose is oddly dark and narrow, and the ear is not foreshortened enough, so it seems to stick out from his head.
Mor had many assistants – Joachim Beuckelaer at one time worked as his drapery painter – and the upper lashes of the sitter’s left eye catch the light in a way seen in the work of Sanchez Coello, one of his pupils.
We don't know who this man is, though similar collars and beards appear in portraits of the 1560s and 1570s. The painting is on paper, mounted on a walnut panel, and is unfinished. It might have been a study, perhaps for one sitter in a group, or possibly a pattern which the artist kept in his workshop and from which finished portraits could be made as required.
Many of the distortions of the face are those practised by Anthonis Mor. The far eye is out of perspective and too large, the shadow behind the nose is oddly dark and narrow, and the ear is not foreshortened enough, so it seems to stick out from his head.
Mor had many assistants – Joachim Beuckelaer at one time worked as his drapery painter – and the upper lashes of the sitter’s left eye catch the light in a way seen in the work of Sánchez Coello, one of his pupils.
