# Portrait of a Man Holding a Volume of Petrarch [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [CLOUET, Jean]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Oil on oak panel, 38 x 33 cm ## Commentary The sitter in this arresting portrait remains unidentified. In his ungloved hand he holds a small volume by the celebrated fourteenth-century Italian poet Petrarch, though the inscription 'Petrarca' is on the back cover of the volume rather than the front. The laces of the binding are undone, as if the man has just stopped reading the volume. The binding is Venetian and is probably a pocket-sized edition of the Rime, either the 1521 or 1533 Aldine editions which carried the title Il Petrarca. ## Related artworks - [François I]() - [Guillaume Budé]() - [Jean de la Barre]() - [Madame de Lautrec]() - [Man with a Petrarch]() - [Portrait of an Unknown Man]() - [Portrait of Claude of Lorraine, Duke of Guise]() - [Portrait of François I as St John the Baptist]() - [Portrait of François I, King of France]() - [Portrait of Jean de Dinteville, Seigneur de Polisy]() - [Portrait of Madame de Canaples]() - [The Dauphin François, Son of François I]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()