Combining the long Netherlandish tradition for careful observation, this work is a characteristic example of the type of portraits that were produced in the Netherlands during the mid-sixteenth century, introducing new fashions in the portrait mode that were emerging in the middle decades of the century. This is most evident in this sitter’s ‘speaking’ gesture, a characteristic feature of portraits from the period by artists like Jan Cornelisz. Vermeyen and those working in his circle. During the 1530s and 1540s, Netherlandish painters began increasingly to experiment with the expressive potential of hands in their portraits. Indeed, as Friedländer discussed, unlike the mouth, gesture and hands could speak ‘a language the eye could understand’ (M.J. Freidländer, Early Netherlandish Painting: Anthonis Mor and his Contemporaries, Leiden and Brussels, 1975, XIII, p. 72). These gestures were used to express and convey qualities of the sitter’s personality or profession to the viewer, showing their ‘vitality and willpower…[or used to] address the beholder in an indicatory or expository manner’ (Ibid.). Frequently referencing common gestures used in rhetorical debate and discussion, such ‘speaking portraits’ became a popular conceit in catering to humanist interests in ideas of veristic portraiture, which lacked ‘only voice’ (V. Sintobin in M. Ainsworth and K. Christiansen (eds.), From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1998, p. 198).

Unusually for a portrait of this type by a Netherlandish artist, the support for the painting has been found to be limewood, rather than the typical oak favoured throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This suggests that the panel was probably not painted in the Netherlands, but more likely in Germany. Jan Cornelisz. Vermeyen worked principally as Court Painter to Margaret of Austria (1480-1530), Regent of the Netherlands, from around 1525, and then for her nephew Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. The itinerant nature of the Habsburg Court saw the painter frequently travel and he is known to have spent several years working in Augsburg and Innsbruck in the early 1530s, important cities in the Imperial territories. It is therefore not improbable that painters working in the city, or likewise travelling in company with the Court, would have been called upon to paint portraits in these places, following the prevailing courtly style of portraiture expounded by Vermeyen.

The complex green curtain draped behind the sitter is a feature found in several works by Vermeyen, his workshop and circle, like the Portrait of Érard de la Marck (Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum); the Portrait of a man (’s-Hertogenbosch, Noordbrabants Museum); or the Portrait of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor (Private collection, Christie’s, London, 8 December 2017, lot 106). However, while the portrait clearly betrays knowledge of Vermeyen’s style, the painter seems also to have been aware of the work of other contemporary portraitists working in the mid-sixteenth century, like Jan Sanders van Hemessen and Jan van Scorel.

It has been suggested that the portrait depicts the Spanish Humanist and writer Juan de Valdés (c. 1490-1541), whose twin brother Alfonso was an important figure at the Court of Charles V. Juan de Valdés does not seem to have visited the Netherlands during his lifetime, spending the majority of his life in Naples having fled persecution by the Spanish Inquisition in Spain in 1530.