When someone asks how the New Year's Resolutions are going...😒 Here a man is seated at a table, wearing a large black fur-lined coat and black hat. He appears to be sitting in front of an open window through which a dark cloudy sky can be seen. He has an unusual expression, almost a sneer – his nostrils are flared, his lips pursed, and forehead lined. His eyes do not fix on us but appear to be watching something to our left. He is shown holding a book with an elaborately tooled metal cover, decorated with red stones on the metal clasps. Beside his other hand rests, a bronze statuette of a woman. She holds a baton or possibly a dagger which she points towards her abdomen. She may represent the Roman heroine Lucretia who stabbed herself to defend her honour. In the background, a broken fragment of a pseudo-antique relief of Venus and Cupid with Mars dominates the space behind the sitter. The portrait was once thought to represent Parmigianino’s friend and patron, Francesco Bairdo, but now it is regarded simply as the portrait of an unknown collector. Parmigianino, ‘Portrait of a Collector’, about 1523 © The National Gallery, London. #ArtHistory #Portrait #NationalGallery