Portrait of a Young Man in Red

Giovanni Bellini

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the chest up, a clean-shaven young man with pale, peachy skin looks off to our left against a cloudy sky in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our left, and he gazes in that direction with dark eyes under thick, arched brows. He has a long nose, smooth cheeks, and a hint of a five-o-clock shadow around his closed, peach-colored lips. Chestnut-brown hair is covered by a black headdress with two long tails. One end drapes over the front of his right shoulder, farther from us, and the other end hangs down his back. He wears a brick-red garment that falls in vertical pleats from a high collar. A white undergarment peeks out from the top of the neckline, and the collar is fastened with a small clasp at the throat. Behind him, tan-colored clouds float across a blue sky.