Portrait of a Man

Alvise Vivarini

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the chest up, a pale-skinned, clean-shaven man with brown hair and wearing brown looks up and slightly to our right in this vertical portrait painting. The man’s brown eyes gaze up under low, dark brows. He has a square face with a rounded nose, a wide chin, and his thin lips are closed. Wavy brown hair falls almost to his shoulders from under an earth-brown, brimless cap. Vertical pleats fall from the high neck of his coffee-brown garment, which is lined with a narrow band of white at the neck. The man is lit brightly from our left, but his clothing and hair nearly blend into the dark brown background.