There are very few dated portraits by Paris Bordone and even in these the sitters remain unidentified. The artist had evolved his characteristic portrait style early in his career, as is seen in the signed and dated Portrait of a man of 1523 in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. This picture acts as a starting point for the artist’s career as a portraitist as his style changed but little. Recent cleaning of the Man with a letter has revealed that the sitter is in front of a loggia between whose pillars a dark blue open sky is now visible. This is relatively unusual as a background in Venetian painting where sky is most often seen out of a window opening on to a landscape.

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