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Portrait of a Musician

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Portrait of a Musician

The Portrait of a Musician (Italian: Ritratto di musico) is an unfinished painting widely attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1483–1487. Painted in oils (and perhaps tempera) on a small panel of walnut wood, it is the artist's only known male portrait painting. Produced in Milan, it marks a dramatic shift from the profile portraiture that predominated in the city in the 15th century. It has been in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan since at least 1672. Most scholars attribute at least the sitter's face to Leonardo, based on stylistic resemblances to other works by him. The stiff and rigid qualities of the body may be explained by the painting's unfinished state, or assistance by a student. The identity of the subject has been closely debated among scholars; the portrait's intimacy indicates a private commission, or one by a personal friend. During a 1904–1905 restoration, the removal of overpainting revealed a hand holding sheet music, indicating that the sitter was a musician. (Full article...)