Portrait of a Sick Man
painting by Titian in the Uffizi
Portrait of a Sick Man is an oil on canvas painting by Titian, from 1515. It is now in the Uffizi, in Florence.
Composition
The work is inscribed "MDXIIIII AN. ETATIS XXII". Its title derives solely from the unknown subject's pallid face and melancholy expression. One hypothesis holds him to be Claudio Tolomei, but this is not widely accepted.
Provenance
The work is recorded in Leopoldo de' Medici's collections, which on his death entered the grand-ducal collections, which later passed to the Uffizi and other museums in Florence. In the earliest inventories, until 1769, it was attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, then to Sebastiano del Piombo (1797) and from 1880 to 1890 to the circle of Lorenzo Lotto. The art historians Adolfo Venturi and Bernard Berenson argued against the attribution to Piombo and others started to point to Titian as a possible attribution, though it took until a 1975 restoration for this to be confirmed.
Literary references
The portrait's subject inspired the protagonist in "La última visita del gentilhombre enfermo", one of thirty Giovanni Papini stories in his 1906 collection "La tragedia cotidiana". Jorge Luis Borges then in turn included the story in the volume "Libro de sueños" in his "The Library of Babel" series.
“Portrait of a Sick Man” enters the record as painting by Titian in the Uffizi. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Portrait, Sick and painting can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Portrait of a Sick Man” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Portrait, Sick and painting provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 5, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q3937418. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1515, 1769, 1797 and 1880.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Portrait of a Sick Man”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Portrait of a Sick Man primary sources, Portrait of a Sick Man archive and Portrait research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Portrait of a Sick Man” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.