Bartolomeo Veneto, 'Lodovico Martinengo', 1530

This elegant young man’s identity is revealed on the strip of paper or parchment curled around the pole in the upper left corner. Bartolomeo Veneto used a suspended roll of paper like this as a device to identify the sitter in several of his paintings. The inscription is now difficult to read in places, but appears to say: Lodovico Martinengo at the age of _ years. Painted by Bartolomeo Veneto 16 June 1530.

When the picture was first acquired by the National Gallery, the age was read as 21. Lodovico may have been from the branch of the Martinengo family living in Brescia, as there is a seventeenth-century document in the family’s house which says they owned a portrait by Bartolomeo Veneto.

Lodovico wears a shirt of fine white linen embroidered with patterns in red cross-stitch. His short scarlet coat is bordered with three strips of crinkled, slashed satin. One of his arms is under his coat and one emerges from it, holding his leather glove. The sleeves, which are not attached to the coat, are of plum-coloured silk, sewn with a triple line of gold thread round the cuff. They are embroidered with gold and decorated with slashes revealing cloth of gold beneath. His small red cap is decorated with ornaments of gold with blue enamel and an exotic and expensive white ostrich feather. His codpiece, of yellow and black satin bordered with scarlet, protrudes from his black doublet and his gloved hand rests on the hilt of his sword. He is richly dressed and must have been a very wealthy young man.

Although it has been cut down a little at the sides, the painting was always narrow – this was a format favoured by Bartolomeo. Cleaning has revealed two grey objects with curved outlines cut by the left edge of the painting at about the level of Lodovico’s chin. It is no longer possible to tell what they are, but when the portrait was first painted Lodovico was looking at them; they were probably included to give us a sense of Lodovico’s interests or character. A sense of intimacy is created when the subject of a portrait directly meets the viewer’s gaze; by turning Lodovico’s eyes away from ours, Bartolomeo Veneto has made him seem reserved and psychologically distant.

Lodovico stands in front of a long piece of dark green velvet, which is suspended from a series of very fine threads, creating dips and hollows in the fabric. It is beautifully observed and painted, as is the way in which the edge of the fabric curls and creases behind Lodovico’s head. Bartolomeo Veneto seems to have had a particular appreciation for and understanding of the sensuous qualities of fabric, and he frequently used textiles as backdrops for his portraits.