Portrait of a Young Man, ca. 1524
Bernardino Licinio (ca. 1489–1565)
Oil on wooden panel, marouflaged on mahogany, 12 × 9 5/8 in. (30.7 × 24.6 cm)
Restored, date(s) unknown; restored, 1937 and 1961; conserved, 2019–20
Kress Collection, Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 61.151.P

The conservation of this painting over time is an ongoing interpretive effort that is shaped by changing collecting contexts, balancing a reverence for the past with its persistence in the future. This work once belonged to the Vendramin collection in Venice and is documented in an illustrated inventory commissioned by Andrea Vendramin (1565–1629) in 1627. In 1961 restorer Mario Modestini removed overpaint covering the unfinished left hand of the sitter in this painting, previously thought to be a finished work. Fluctuating environmental conditions in storage subsequently led to lifting of the paint layer, prompting renewed examination in 2019, when conservators found that the dark background had also been painted over before the painting’s accession into the Samuel H. Kress Collection in 1936. The removal of this overpaint revealed the pale-yellow color that is visible today. The painting was then sealed in a controlled microclimate environment to limit further damage.