A study of the style and formal characteristics of this painting make it possible to date it around the time that Velázquez made his second trip to Italy. Thus, this is the only work of Velázquez in the Prado Museum collection from that time. The model's hairstyle, mustache and goatee are in keeping with the fashion at the court of Pope Innocence X, and the composition is more related to portraits by artists working in Italy in the central decades of that century, such as Bernini, than with earlier works by Velázquez. Moreover, the expressive and communicative emphases in this work are characteristic of other portraits Velázquez made in Rome. Among the various hypotheses as to the identity of the model, the most widely accepted is that he was Michelangelo Augurio, the Pope's barber, who was known to have posed for Velázquez. Nevertheless, this is not a certainty.