Portrait of a Gentleman, bust-length, in black costume with a ruff

We are grateful to Dr. Edmund Pillsbury for confirming the attribution from photographs, and for suggesting a date in the later 1570s or the 1580s. That date would place this portrait amongst others painted of members of the Court in and around Urbino at the time. Barocci returned to Urbino, probably in 1570, following his long convalescence from a severe illness, contracted whilst in Rome in the mid-1560s, that would affect his health for the rest of his life. In Urbino he found favour under the patronage of Francesco Maria II della Rovere, who had succeded his father as Duke of Urbino in 1574, and was an enthusiastic patron of the arts.

Although not forming the dominant part of his oeuvre, Barocci's strength as a portraitist comes from his ability to achieve, in the words of Andrea Emiliani, 'un rapporto con la realtà psicologica del soggetto che diviene ancor più sensibile ed eccitata proprio perché immersa in uno straordinario spettacolo di finezze espressive, ove ogni particolare, si direbbe, ha una sua partecipazione assoluta al risultato' (A. Emiliani, Federico Barocci, Bologna, 1985, I, p. 91).