Lot 2131 Dα

This previously unpublished work, finely drawn in black chalk, depicts a middle-aged man. He wears a simple headdress of the kind which is also seen in Venetian works of the early 16th century, such as those of Carpaccio, Gentile Bellini, or Jacopo de´ Barbari. The man's features and the way he gazes into the distance are more reminiscent of Titian's portrait of Giovanni Bellini in the Statens Museum in Copenhagen. Further stylistic parallels also indicate an origin of the sheet in 16th century Venice when we compare it, for example, with Gentile Bellini's self portrait in the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett or the ink wash portrait of Giovanni Bellini in the Musée Condé in Chantilly.