Portrait of Alvise Contarini(); (verso) A Tethered Roebuck. Artist: Jacometto (Jacometto Veneziano) (Italian, active Venice by ca. 1472-died before 1498). Dimensions: Overall 4 5/8 x 3 3/8 in. ; recto, painted surface 4 1/8 x 3 1/8 in.; verso, painted surface 4 3/8 x 3 1/8 in.. Date: ca. 1485-95.This exquisite and enigmatic portrait and its pendant (1975.1.85) are most likely the works by the Venetian painter and illuminator Jacometto, recorded by the connoisseur Marcantonio Michiel in the collection of a Venetian patrician in 1543. Michiel, who praised them as "a most perfect work," identified the man as Alvise Contarini and the woman as a "nun of San Secondo" (a Benedictine convent in Venice). The paired portraits and the allusion to fidelity on the verso of the male effigy (a roebuck chained beneath the Greek word AIEI, meaning "forever") would normally suggest a married couple; however, her possible status as a nun makes it difficult to determine their relationship. If the garment