Portrait of a Young Man (Lotto, Accademia)

Portrait of a Young Man or Portrait of a Gentleman in his Study is a painting by Lorenzo Lotto, created "c." 1530, now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia of Venice, whose collections it entered from a private collection in 1930. It is known in Italian as "Giovane malato", literally "The Ill Young Man" - the flower with leaves is thought to be a symbol of disappointment in love or an illness, perhaps melancholy. The subject also turns his back on worldly pleasures (symbolised by a hunting horn, a dead bird and a lute). More so than in other works produced around the same time by the artist such as his "Portrait of Andrea Odoni", it shows Lotto moving beyond the influence of Titian with preciser definition of details and contours.