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

Portrait of a Man

1520-22
Oil on wood, 51 x 40 cm
Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence

Early Renaissance portraits show subjects in profile. By the time Rosso made this uncompromising depiction, however, painters had largely freed their sitters in the name of naturalness. Here, the angle of body and head create a deliberately laboured torsion, typical of Rosso's postures, even more difficult than Michelangelo's.