On the 9th of October, 1905, Osvald Sirén wrote that he had found a portrait at the home of a widow and
...the widow didn't know whose portrait it was or who had painted it, but I immediately recognized as the work of Sebastiano del Piombo, the famous Venetian master who was Raphael's rival in Rome, and Michelangelo's friend. It is a typical work from Sebastiano's Roman period (c. 1530-40), painted with admirable strength and detail. ... This is really a stroke of luck: a good work by one of the greatest masters of the Renaissance at a ridiculously low price.
Paul Sinebrychoff, however, doubted the acquisition of a portrait whose appearance does not please me . Sinebrychoff nonetheless agreed to the deal, which had been on the verge of being called off when the price unexpectedly rose, only to fall back to the agreed-upon level.
Later Osvald Sirén identified the figure in the portrait as that of the famous poet and satirist Pietro Aretino. Other scholars however have questioned the attribution to Sebastiano and the identification of Aretino. In 1944, Rudolfo Palluchini first pointed the painting in the direction of Francesco Salviati. In 1988, Altti Kuusamo published an interesting article on the portrait. He carefully investigated the basis of Sirén's original attribution, and found it insufficient. The identification of Aretino was not watertight either. Kuusamo identified the hat in the portrait as a biretta, which in 16th century Italy was a hat typical of a churchman, a Prelate. Aretino did not belong to the Church aristocracy. As to the dating of the portrait, Kuusamo was more or less of the same opinion as Sirén. The Prelate's beard was of some help here. Earlier such a beard would not have been possible on an Italian priest, but in the 1530s the example set by the Pope had brought beards into fashion among the clergy. Kuusamo dated the painting as late 1540s - early 1550s and thought that it was related to the oeuvre of Francesco Salviati.
The charm and power of the portrait lie in the Prelate's uneasy gaze to the side. The furtive eyes dominate the whole work. ...It is a picture of a look, and very likely one not dependent upon a single interpretation . A glance to the side is often used to great effect in portraits by Salviati, which
...simultaneously express the desire to be painted and the discomfort of being a model. Thus they create a conflict between the constant and the transient, between the intention to be remembered and momentariness. This tention is naturally exaggerated when the person portrayed is a prelate whose task is to represent eternity, not temporality.
Francesco Salviati Portrait of a prelate