Young gentleman in a library, portrayed with the representative tools of his intellectual occupation.
The painting, datable within the first two decades of the 19th century, recalls the tradition of portraits at the end of studies, testifying to their culmination and the attainment of adulthood.
Resting on the table are three books and a case containing reading glasses, objects that, along with the other books neatly stored on the library shelves, indicate that the young man has completed a course of humanities studies.
The stylistic language refers to the hand of an artist with Venetian sensibility, as suggested by the almost exclusively coloristic definition of the forms.
The portrait is now in perfect condition, after a recovery made necessary by the fact that the painting was used from the back, on which another painter had painted a Madonna Addolorata of popular quality.
The work is inserted in an early 19th-century wooden frame, with two-tone green and ochre lacquering (see detailed photo no. 3).
Oil on canvas, 79.5 x 58 cm.
