Paolo Veronese, 'Portrait of a Gentleman of the Soranzo Family', about 1585

This full-length portrait shows a man seated in a Roman-style chair, against a backdrop of deep green drapery and a classical column and pedestal. Dressed in sumptuous black satin trimmed with ermine, his clothing conveys his wealth and social status. It is likely that the sitter himself chose this outfit.

We are not certain of this man’s identity and it has been suggested that he may be a member of the Soranzo family. One of Venice’s leading noble families, they held numerous prestigious seats of political power, including the election of Giovanni Soranzo (1240–1328) as the 51st Doge of Venice. Seventeenth-century sources record a portrait of this description, together with its pendant, as belonging to the Venetian collection of the Dutch merchant Jan Van Reynst (1601–1646) and later in 1663 in the collection of the French painter Nicolas Régnier (about 1591–1667). The Soranzo connection is plausible as there is evidence that Veronese may have moved from Verona to Venice thanks to the influence of Pietro Soranzo (1496–1554), and one of the artist’s earliest commissions was the fresco decoration of the family’s country villa La Soranza, at Treville di Castelfranco, Veneto. It is difficult to say which member of the family commissioned Veronese to paint this portrait, but he maintained close connections with the Soranzo throughout his career. The luxurious materials combined with a sombre use of colour and austere detail convey a sense of self-possessed elegance and reserve, in keeping with contemporary social mores expected of a member of Venice’s ruling class.

As a genre intended to promote the status of an individual and a marker of family lineage, portraiture had a particularly important role among the wealthy elite of sixteenth-century Venice. The art historian Giorgio Vasari singled out portrait collecting as a notable and long-standing custom in the city, where multiple patrician families competed for political power.

In contrast to his contemporary leading Venetian counterparts Titian and Tintoretto, portraiture formed a much smaller part of Veronese’s artistic output. However, he still wielded influence in this genre, especially for his role in popularising the full-length format among Venice’s elite. This type of portraiture was considerably rare in the first half of the sixteenth century, with one notable exception being Moretto da Brescia’s Portrait of a Man, the earliest surviving example of a life-size, full-length portrait on canvas or panel painted in Italy. Veronese may well have been familiar with these examples of Moretto’s portraiture, given the proximity of Brescia to Verona, his place of birth. This can be seen in the use of a column pedestal against which a sitter is poised, a motif that also features prominently in works such as the Portrait of a Gentleman by Moretto’s pupil, Giovanni Battista Moroni. He used this format, seen in mainland Italy, to paint members of Venice’s elite. Veronese’s innovative use of the full-length format and striking black and white costume likely influenced later portraiture such as Van Dyck’s Abbé Scaglia.

The restrained, almost monochrome colour palette and loose brushwork of this painting are characteristic of Veronese’s late style, suggesting this was painted in the final years of the artist’s life. It shares much in common stylistically with other late portraits such as the Portrait of a Gentleman (about 1585, Galleria Colonna, Rome) and the Portrait of a Woman with a Dog (1560–70, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid), which also feature elegantly poised sitters set against a shadowy background, and framed by a swag of deep emerald drapery. The strong diagonals add a dynamism to his otherwise reserved attitude. Veronese painted very few full-length portraits of individuals in his later years, making this a rare example of his work in this genre.