(Brescia 1523–1576/1579)
Portrait of a commander, possibly Alfonso d’Avalos, Marchese del Vasto,
oil on canvas, 128 x 107.5 cm, framed

We are grateful to Marco Tanzi for suggesting the attribution on the basis of a photograph and for his help in cataloguing the present lot.

This imposing portrait represents a commander wearing an elegant suit of armour, with arm and shoulder shields; he wears scarlet flared and slashed velvet breaches which compliment his stockings. In his right hand he holds the baton of command while he rests his left hand on a table covered in green velvet, on which is his helmet. The care in the description of the subject’s dress reflects his social status.

Agostino Galeazzi´s activity as a portraitist has recently been revealed through research on the altarpiece of 1552 of the Madonna and Child enthroned between Saint Cecilia and Saint Catherine and Donors of the Luzzago family, which was formerly in the church of San Pietro in Oliveto, Brescia and is now conserved in the chapel of the Palazzo Vescovile, Brescia, in which the donor, Ludovico Luzzago and his wife and son are depicted (see M. G. Sarti, s. v. Galeazzi, Agostino, in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 51, Rome 1998, pp. 391–393; V. Guazzoni, Traccia per un profile di Agostino Galeazzi, in: Pittori intorno a Moretto, exhibition catalogue, Brescia 2014, pp. 17–27).

Tanzi compares the present portrait with the figure of Ludovico Luzzago in the altarpiece now in the Palazzo Vescovile in Brescia, with the Portrait of a noble warrior on horseback (inv. no. 52.9.160), and the Kress portrait of a commander in armour (inv. no. GL.60.17.46), both in the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh. A comparison can also be made to the careful, near miniaturist description of the ornament and armour, and the cool, luminously bright palette, rich in refined and vivid detail which is so typical of the final phase of Moretto’s activity. It should be noted however, that the iconographic sources for the present portrait are not limited exclusively to Brescia, they are also drawn from a typology derived from Titian whose work had gained popularity amongst the pro-Spanish aristocracy of Milan through the painting of Bernardino Campi of Cremona, who was the principal portraitist at the Milanese court around the middle of the century. It is hard to ignore, for example, one particular model from among those for the present work: the Portrait of Alfonso d’Avalos in armour with a pageboy executed by Titian in 1533 now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (inv. no. 2003.486).

In the case of the present Portrait of a commander there is a curious stylistic cross-fertilisation that reveals a layering of typically Milanese Titianesque elements over a fully formed background of Brescian painting, which refers specifically to the mature work of Moretto. This stylistic blending is explained by the rich and varied production of work created during the 1530s and 1540s in Lombardy, especially in Milan, which occurred when Alfonso d’Avalos, Marchese del Vasto was Governor of the State from 1538 to 1546.

Titian’s Allocution of Alfonso d’Avalos, Marchese del Vasto in the Prado, Madrid, (inv. no. P000417) also provides a point of comparison with the sitter of the present portrait here under discussion. The Marchese del Vasto, who can be recognised in the printed effigy of the commander in the Ritratti et elogii di capitani illustri (Ritratti et elogii di capitani illustri Dedicati all’Altezza Seren.ma di Francesco d’Este duca di Modena, Rome 1635, p. 220). However, Tanzi maintains a certain caution regarding the identification of the sitter in the present painting, as the sitter here lacks the honour of the ‘toison d’or’ which he received in 1531.