French, 'Profile Portrait of a Young Man', possibly about 1580

A young man with fair hair and blue eyes is shown from the side, with nothing to indicate his identity or social status. The picture is painted on a paper support, which may originally have been laid down on a panel; it is now mounted on canvas. The greyish background is apparently overpaint and covers a strong green.

Profile portraits like were not much in favour in France during the sixteenth century – only a few painted or drawn profiles are known and those of royal subjects are often associated with portrait medals or coin portraits. The form was not totally out of fashion, however. In the Chronologie collée, a late sixteenth-century collection of portraits of famous men, 33 out of 144 are profiles.

The painter Antoine Caron included many profiles in his figure compositions. He made the drawings on which the Valois Tapestries (Uffizi, Florence), probably woven in Brussels in the early 1580s, were based. In one, The Tournament, a child standing in front of Catherine de' Medici – probably her grandson, Charles of Valois – is shown in profile. His head is not unlike this painting; it’s perhaps possible that this, painted on paper, may be a study for, or even a fragment of, a tapestry cartoon. Infrared reflectography reveals what appears to be pouncing for the features.