Bearded Man with a Letter

Holding a letter in his left hand, the sitter offers clues to his identity. The form of address Mag. (Magnifico) indicates a high social status; the word Bergamo, near the bottom of the paper, presumably alludes to where he was from; and what may be — though the inscription is very difficult to read — the given name Batt. (Battista) and the surname Marini suggest that he might be identified with a Battista Marini, resident of Albino (close to Bergamo), born in 1521. The exquisite fur-trimmed and lined jerkin represents extremely costly tailoring. The nearly full-frontal pose is novel in Moroni’s corpus; only two of his other portraits, both of seated figures, approach the provocative frontality presented here. It has been suggested that this portrait inspired Rembrandt’s similarly fur-clad Nicolaes Ruts. A Moroni portrait was owned by one of Rembrandt’s patrons, Jan Six, and Rembrandt may very well have seen it.