Portrait of a Halberdier

Portrait of a Halberdier, The Halberdier or Man with a Halberd is a 1529-1530 or 1537 oil painting by Pontormo, originally painted on panel and later transferred to canvas.

[1] A preparatory drawing now in Florence's Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe shows the figure in a more frontal and less contraposto pose.

[2] It was long thought to show Francesco Guardi, a very young soldier of the Florentine Republic during the Siege of Florence, since Vasari's Lives of the Artists records a portrait of Guardi by Pontormo.

Others have argued it shows a young Cosimo I de' Medici after his victory at the 1537 Battle of Montemurlo, based on a note in a historic inventory.

In May 1989 it was auctioned to its present owner for 32.5 million dollars, the highest price for an old master painting up to that date.