The painting is a half-bust portrait of a young gentleman aged about thirty and sporting a reddish beard. The bust is framed by a mock painted trompe-l’oeil frame with an oval window finely decorated à cartouche in tones of pink and green.
We are assisted in defining the painting’s stylistic context and likely date, in addition to confirming the lofty quality of the work, by the picture on the back of the small panel. The subject is extremely rare: Cupid is usually intent on shooting arrows, rather than receiving them as he is doing here.
Thus the presence of the painting on the back prompts us to suggest that the picture is likely to have been a nuptial gift from the groom to his future bride, with his portrait on one side and an allegory of a subject relating to love on the other: in this instance, as we shall see below, we are looking at the mythological sublimation of marital love, chaste rather than lustful, as a pledge of faithfulness.