Despite the apparent clarity and certainty of every line in Young Man Holding a Roundel, Botticelli was subtly adapting and developing the pose and details as he worked on the painting. X-rays and infra-red reflectograms not only show the structure of incised circles and lines that are characteristic of Botticelli’s method of plotting out his compositions, but also reveal extensive underdrawing that differs in many details from the finished painting. This process of continuous revision is symptomatic of the perfectionist quest for the ideal that is a hallmark of his art.

Young Man Holding a Roundel was first securely recorded in the 1930s in the collection of Lord Newborough at Caernarvon in Wales, and is believed to have been acquired by his ancestor Sir Thomas Wynn, 1st Lord Newborough (1736-1807) while living in Tuscany. In 1935/8, the portrait passed via a London dealer to a private collector, whose heirs sold it at auction in 1982 to the present owner for £810,000.

In the past 50 years, the painting has spent extended periods on loan at the National Gallery, London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. It has also featured prominently in major exhibitions at the Royal Academy, the National Gallery of Art, Washington and the Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main.