Portrait of a Man, Said to be Christopher Columbus (born about 1446, died 1506)

A stern, bearded man in a dark cap and fur-trimmed coat gazes out from a shadowed ground. Long believed to portray Christopher Columbus, this commanding portrait was painted in Rome by Sebastiano del Piombo — the Venetian painter who brought Giorgione’s soft tonality to the Roman High Renaissance. The heavy brow and unflinching stare give the sitter a monumentality worthy of the explorer he was once taken to be.