The identity of the painting's subject is not known, but it is thought the balding, bearded man in a stiff, starchedcollar may be Juan Mateos, King Philip IV of Spain's master of the hunt.
Over them he buttoned a cuff-frayed and graying black cassock with its faint stink of him, waisted it with a hand-wide black cincture, snapped on a starched white Roman collar, and laced on his ankle-high black walking shoes.