Portrait of a Man with a Medal of Cosimo the Elder

What you see

A young man, seen to the waist, faces us directly with a serious look and his head slightly tilted. He wears a red cap, black clothes, and a thick mane of dark hair that frames his face. With both hands he holds a gold medal at chest height, bearing a man’s profile, that of Cosimo the Elder. Behind him, a river winds through a green valley under a blue sky.

The red of the cap and the gold of the medal are the only strong notes of color; everything else is black, green and pale blue. The face is modeled with soft shadows. Watch for the long fingers wrapped around the medal and the thin, stretched-out clouds floating in the sky.