Portrait of a Man with a Pink

Michael Sittow, born in Reval to a painter of the same name and trained in Bruges, was the most accomplished portraitist of the northern European courts around 1500, working for Isabella of Castile and later for Philip the Handsome. This half-length portrait of a young man holding a carnation dates from about 1500, at the height of his Spanish years, and shows the precise, enamel-like handling and the quiet psychological penetration that made him the equal of the great Flemish masters of the previous generation. The pink the sitter holds was a symbol of betrothal in the portraiture of the period, and the plain dark ground concentrates attention on the youthful face with a directness that anticipates the northern portrait tradition of the following decades. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.