This sculptural and intensely naturalistic portrait shows a man feeding a sparrowhawk. His hollow cheeks, the slight bump under his lip and the wart under his left eye are unflinchingly recorded. The ruddy, leathery texture of the man’s skin recalls that of Savoldo’s Hermit Saints St Anthony and St Paul of 1520 (Accademia, Venice) and his Elijah Fed by the Raven of 1515-20 (National Gallery of Art, Washington). While the man’s face, hair and shirt are intact, the area where the hawk was painted is damaged and much of the bird was reconstructed when the painting was restored in 1969-72. The beautifully painted linen collar of the shirt has the attention to detail of Savoldo’s early works, and can be compared with the fine edging of the Virgin’s chemise in the Virgin Adoring the Child with St Jerome and St Francis (Galleria Sabauda, Turin). The sharp clarity of the portrait is different from Savoldo’s later works such as his lyrical and atmospheric Shepherd with a Flute of c.1525 (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles).

The Louvre's Portrait of Bernardo di Salla has a pose very similar to this one and entered the Louvre at the same time as a Portrait of a Woman of identical size. These two portraits have usually been considered together and variously attributed to Buonconsiglio, Lorenzo Costa, Boltraffio, Lorenzo Lotto, Alvise Vivarini and even to Savoldo. Recently the signature of Francesco Caroto has been discovered on the Portrait of a Woman, and both portraits have been attributed to that artist. This discovery throws up a name that should at least be considered in relation to the Royal Collection picture, especially as Giorgio Vasari mentions a portrait, painted by Francesco Caroto in competition with a Flemish artist, of ‘an elderly clean-shaven gentleman with a sparrow hawk’ in the collection of Isabella d’Este in Mantua. The Royal Collection Man with Hawk has a Mantuan provenance and follows Giorgio Vasari’s description (even if the man seems too young to be described as ‘elderly’). In the opinion of the present author, however, the style of the painting is much closer to Savoldo than to Caroto.

The direct gaze of the man portrayed with such clarity can be compared with Lorenzo Lotto’s Portrait of a Bearded Man also in the Royal Collection. Savoldo’s factual approach, working from the particular features of the model, and his use of light from one source, were key elements of the Lombard tradition, which were then taken up and developed by Caravaggio. The writer Paolo Pino, who was Savoldo’s pupil, wrote: ‘I do not ... wish our painter to become ensnared in things other than the painting of the figure in imitation of nature, but this should be his foundation’.

The painting appears in Pyne's illustrated 'Royal Residences' of 1819, hanging in the King's Dressing Room at Windsor Castle (RCIN 922105).

Catalogue entry adapted from The Art of Italy in the Royal Collection: Renaissance and Baroque, London, 2007