Portrait of a Man

A man in a red cap turns toward us over a parapet and meets our eyes with a faint, knowing readiness; some believe it is Antonello himself. By setting the sitter three-quarters to the light and letting him gaze straight out, Antonello brought the format of Jan van Eyck and the Netherlanders into Italy, displacing the stiff profile then standard in Florence. The modeling is built from countless thin oil glazes - catchlights in the eyes, the faint stubble, the soft give of the felt cap. Set against Memling's landscape portrait in this collection, it marks the two-way traffic between Bruges and Venice.