A little while ago, I Daily Pic’d a Renaissance painting that seemed all about the long time it takes to sit for your portrait. This later picture, which I recently saw at the Seattle Art Museum, seems keen on warping portraiture’s timeline. It was painted in 1567 by the late Mannerist artist Francesco Traballesi, and it depicts a young man named Bartolomeo Sirigatti, who is holding a note to his father that reads “the painter is almost finished with my portrait and I like it very much”. This doesn’t come off as perfectly true – since the portrait that shows us the letter is complete, and notable for the fine and final touches that allow its text to be read.
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