Portrait of a seated gentleman

PIETRO FACCHETTI 

Mantova, 1539 – Rome, 1613

Portrait of a seated gentleman

oil on canvas, cm 116×87

This still-unidentified figure, who observes us with a severe and probing gaze, has been assigned by Emilio Negro, author of a study on the painting, to the hand of the Mantuan painter Pietro Facchetti, an “engraver and painter of clear Lombard, Venetian, and Northern European influences”. A prolific portraitist in Rome, where he relocated around the 1570s, he worked in the wake of Scipione Pulzone, and is remembered by the biographer Giovanni Baglione as having portraied “almost all the Roman ladies, and a considerable number of the gentlemen and titled persons in Rome”.

Consistently with the Lombard origin and Venetian influences of the painter suggested by Emilio Negro, the painting is characterized by a limited palette and the absence of secondary elements such as draperies or columns, allowing the viewer’s attention to focus on the sitter’s physiognomy and character. The work is nevertheless ennobled by certain details, rendered with remarkable accuracy, such as the white lace collar framing the sitter’s face against his dark attire, and the refined belt with its elegant embossed metal buckle, depicted with great mastery. Among the works cited for comparison by the scholar are the “Portrait of Maria de’ Medici” (Rome, Palazzo Lancellotti) and the fresco depicting “Domenico Fontana presents the project for the new library to Pope Sixtus V” (Rome, Biblioteca Vaticana, Salone Sistino), which includes several portraits sharing with our painting the same “keen physiognomic and psychological accuracy”.