The National Galleries of Ancient Art continue the policy of exchange with the most important Italian and international institutions, offering another extraordinary opportunity for the study and comparison of European heritage, with an exceptional loan from Hungary.

From November 29, 2025, to March 8, 2026, curated by Michele Di Monte, Palazzo Barberini welcomes the famous Portrait of a Young Man – also known as the Portrait of Antonio Brocardo and attributed to Giorgione – coming from the Szépmüvészeti Museum / Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. The work, dating around 1503, represents a rare opportunity to see in Italy a painting of great importance in the production of the Venetian master, whose corpus of certain or reasonably attributed works is notoriously very limited.

This portrait – donated to the Museum of Fine Arts by Archbishop János László Pyrker in 1836, but coming from Venice – maintains that typical aura of mystery of Giorgione: doubts persist about the chronological placement, the identity of the subject portrayed, and the most intimate meanings of the image. Nevertheless, the figure of Giorgione played a crucial role in the development of Italian painting at the beginning of the 16th century, marking a turning point especially in the field of portraiture.

The decision to exhibit the Portrait of a Young Man at Palazzo Barberini in dialogue with the famous Double Portrait by the same author – now preserved at Palazzo Venezia in Rome and exceptionally loaned by VIVE - Vittoriano and Palazzo Venezia within the framework of a collaboration agreement between the two institutions of the Ministry of Culture – offers the opportunity to focus on the distinctive features of Giorgione's innovation, which emerge clearly in the close-up view of the two paintings.

Once this harmony is activated, the relationship with other works in the permanent collection will allow the public to engage with the main themes related to portraiture of the time: from the predominance of the virile role portrait (Bronzino, Bartolomeo Veneto, Metsys), to the "State portrait" (Holbein), to the exploration of the sentimental-erotic vein inaugurated by Giorgione and masterfully represented by Raphael's Fornarina.