Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel

This painting of a Young Man Holding a Roundel embodies Sandro Botticelli’s greatest achievements as a portraitist. Botticelli was celebrated in this field, yet precious few examples of his portraits survive today. Were it not for his fashionable tunic, the supremely elegant individual depicted here could have stepped out of one of Botticelli’s mythological or religious paintings, so striking is his resemblance to the beautiful figures that inhabit those works. Innovative in form and at the same time wholly characteristic of Botticelli’s genius, this timeless masterpiece dates to the height of his career. It represents the perfect visual expression of late quattrocento Florentine culture, yet the crisp simplicity of its setting and the lifelike presence of the sitter renders it profoundly modern.

One of this picture’s most fascinating elements is the round, gold ground panel proudly held in the hands of the dashing young man - an older work of art set into the new. It is by Bartolomeo Bulgarini, a fourteenth century Sienese artist whose refined technique reveals the influence of Duccio, Ugolino di Nerio and Pietro Lorenzetti.