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A sense of calm and expressiveness as well as light effects are outstanding in this canvas, with the beautiful helmet and pieces of armour on foreground. This painting was for long identified erroneously as the portrait of Gattamelata. It clearly shows the influence of Giorgione, particularly in the general tone of calm melancholy expressed in the face of the warrior, a subject which ought instead to convey strength and virility.
Indeed, undoubtedly the most striking aspect of this painting, of still uncertain authorship, is the solemn expression of the handsome captain with his archangel's face who, clasping the hand-guard of his broadsword, seems distracted by more elevated problems.
Formerly the picture has been ascribed to the last activity of Giorgione, dead in 1510. The painting was restored in 1990.
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