Portrait of a prelate, XVII secolo

painting with oval trim, within a non-contemporary frame. Italian school.

The painting of good executive quality depicts an elderly prelate resumed by three quarters, unidentified, but recognizable as such for the black dress with the white collar. The face carved and marked by time is characterized by a tired and deep look turned towards the observer, which conceals a certain psychological disturbance.

The effigy that emerges from the dark background is inserted in a frame with irrelevant oval structure, painted in a later and unspecified period, probably added for exhibition purposes, or to adapt the painting to another group of portraits, according to a common practice widely used by collectors of the time; portraits of different shapes and origins could in fact be enlarged, reduced and repainted, like our case with the addition of the frame, to enrich an already existing series.

State of preservation: good, there are restorations, fillings and small points of deadesione along the margins.