Portrait of Michał Sędziwój

The painting depicts a middle-aged man with a long, thin grey beard and mustache, wearing a dark cap with a reddish crown and a fur-lined, textured brown coat. He faces forward with a serious, direct gaze. In the lower right foreground, he holds a rectangular emblem or escutcheon displaying a large white stork standing on one leg against a darker background. The lighting is chiaroscuro, emphasizing his face and the emblem while the background remains in deep, obscured shadow.

Michał Sędziwój was a highly influential 17th-century Polish alchemist and diplomat, best known for his work 'Novum Lumen Chymicum'. The inclusion of the stork emblem refers to the Ostoja coat of arms, which is associated with his family and often appears in his alchemical publications.