Portrait of a young man, bust-length, in a black hat, a landscape beyond

This fine portrait was part of the renowned Barbarigo collection in Venice, listed in 1845 a ‘prezioso quadro per la purezza del disegno, pel sapore delle tinte e per l’esatta esecuzione’, attributed to Giorgione, before being sold in 1850 to Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, en bloc with a number of masterpieces, including key pictures by Titian. The sitter is surely the same as that shown in the renowned double portrait in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. no. 101), which has long been the focus of great attributional debate; it has variously been given to Giovanni and Gentile Bellini, Giovanni Cariani, and most recently to Vittore Belliniano. The high quality of the picture offered here suggests an attribution to Belliniano may also be plausible, and indeed was given to the artist in the sale in Milan in 1937.