One of the last dated works by the Venetian artist Marco Basaiti is his portrait of an unidentified gentleman. With the half-length figure, Basaiti adopts a popular sixteenth-century style dominated by Titian,[1] demonstrating also the variations then in vogue in the Veneto region. He keeps quite strictly to a Titianesque dynamic pose, with gestures and telling expressions that impart the nature of his subject.

Basaiti places his sitter against the unusual background of a grey-yellow rock wall. A glimpse of faded blue sky peeps onto the panel in the top left corner, where tiny tufts of grass grow out of the rock around the jagged opening. The artist has ‘carved’ his name and the year painted, 1521, into the rough rock face just above the figure’s left shoulder: ‘M. BAXITI P. MDXXI’—one of several variations of Basaiti’s signature.[2] The patchy effect achieved in the surface of the rock wall is subtly repeated in the folds of the sitter’s billowing black robe. His presence is powerful: from a three-quarter position he turns to face the viewer with a direct and confident gaze. With his right hand he firmly grasps the lapel of his robe, adding to his air of confidence and pride. His pair of yellow gloves, probably kid, indicate a man who does no manual work, distinguishing his position in society. Like most of Basaiti’s clients, this gentleman was a citizen of the Republic of  Venice. His rather jaunty, baggy black cap may be that of a scholar or notary.

With a delicate use of shadow around the face and beard, and through warm flesh tones, Basaiti softens the sitter’s features. His later work is noted for this accomplished approach to colour and for monumentality of form. By placing the figure close to the edge of the canvas, thus occupying a great part of the picture plane, he maximises the effect of the dark jacket; its volume, filling most of the lower section of the panel, becomes a vast black pyramid.

Basaiti presents a forceful image to the viewer. His late style is dominated by such formidable figures against increasingly pared back settings, seen here in the unadorned rock wall. This simplicity of landscape contrasts strongly with Basaiti’s early paintings. The starkness of the background adds to the monumentality of this figure of a gentleman.[3]

Simeran Maxwell

[1]Titian (1488/1490–1576).

[2]See Bernard Bonario, ‘Marco Basaiti: A study of the Venetian painter and a catalogue of his works’, unpublished PhD thesis, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1974, pp. 65–68.

[3]Bonario, p. 45.