Portrait of a Young Man

Curtains are an important iconographical feature in Lotto’s work. The motif is adopted from devotional painting, where it often provided a majestically symbolic backdrop for saints or other biblical figures. Since early Christian times, the curtain had been seen as a “velum”, whose function was either to veil whatever was behind it, or, by an act of “revelatio”, or pulling aside of the curtain, to reveal it. To judge from the curtain which fills most of Lotto’s canvas, we may safely conclude that he intends to reveal very little indeed of the “true nature” of his sitter. What he finally does reveal is done with such reserve and discretion as to be barely insinuated.