Italian Master 17th century, Portrait of an Elderly Monk

The painting represents the bust of a mature man (probably a monk), balding and with a very white beard, painted thread by thread. The look down, and the hand to shell the beads of a circolum precatorum (what we now call the Rosary), are details that bring the painting into a proto-baroque world, which is to say, that of a sweetened naturalism., Oil on canvas, 67.5 x 51 cm