A fascinating painting after "Portrait of a Man Holding a Letter" by Italian Mannerist painter Giovanni Battista Moroni. The portrayed character, whose identity is unknown, perhaps a man of letters, shows a great vitality revealed by the slight rotation of his head and the position of his hands. His face has a vaguely gruff and haughty expression, almost putting the observer at unease. The contained chromatic scale presents the contrast between the whiteness of the cuffs and the ruff, with the fully black dress, which serves to highlight both his head and hands.

"Portrait of a Man Holding a Letter" was made after Moroni's decade of living in Albino. In this period, he achieved artistic maturity in his depictions of ordinary people, artisans and anonymous scholars. The painting was wrongly titled "The Advocate" due to a misinterpretation of the note that the subject of the original painting holds in his right hand. The writing MAG was translated in the past as Magistrato (magistrate) differently from Magnifico (magnificent), like the artist most likely originally intended. The sitter's air of well-paid theatricality and his supercilious regard, as though he is summing up evidence, may have also suggested this title.