The Game of Chess

This painting may conceal allegorical themes and portraits of real people (the figure of the buxom woman might allude to Venus, and that of the man-at-arms to Mars) and thus to a wedding event, but the interplay of glances, gestures, and allusions might suggest a group portrait: the melancholy young man looking towards the viewer might be Giulio Campi himself, as we see him in the self portrait certainly attributable to him in the Allegory in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli (Milan). The man leaning on the table might be his father Galeazzo.