This older gentleman, his face lined and his hair gray, turns a penetrating gaze on the viewer. His identity is unknown, although Tintoretto's clients included Venetian statesmen and patricians. Critics such as Bernard Berenson believed this work was painted rather early in Tintoretto's career, but it may be one of a number of extraordinary likenesses he executed about 1560, including those of Alvise Cornaro (Palazzo Pitti, Florence) and Giovanni Paolo Cornaro (Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent), dated 1561. The subtle torsions of pose and the carefully worked fall of light across the hands, faces, and dark garb of these sitters reflect an awareness of Titian's later portraiture.

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