Portrait of an African Man
by Jan Mostaert, c1525–30 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
You might not realise it from a first glance, but you are looking at an extraordinary painting – a work so rare that it is widely believed to be the only European portrait of an autonomous individual of African descent to survive from the late medieval and early modern periods. The sitter, whose identity is still debated, gazes thoughtfully out of the painting, chin slightly