(Venice 1684–1750 Rome)
Portrait of a nobleman,
signed and inscribed on the reverse: Ant.o David pingebat Romae ...,
oil on canvas, 84 x 73 cm, framed

We are grateful to Francesco Petrucci for confirming the attribution.

The present painting can be dated to the mid-1730s (we are grateful to Edward Corp for his assistance). A comparable portrait is in the National Museum, Warsaw, which also shows a young nobleman of princely status (the ermine lined red coat indicates princely, if not royal status) and also with a golden sash tied around his waist. As the other heraldic colour in the Warsaw portrait is also blue (as in the lining of the armor the present sitter is wearing), it might be possible to suggest that both belong to the same family, possibly the Roman nobility, or also a foreign princely family.

As an official portrait painter of the exiled Jacobite court in Rome, David formed a close acquaintance with the Stuarts after they moved to Rome in early 1717. Pre-eminent amongst Italian portraitists, David worked almost exclusively for the House of Stuart for nearly twenty years, also painting James Francis Edward Stuart’s two children Charles Edward Stuart (1720–1788) and Henry Benedict, Cardinal York (1725–1807), both painted circa 1732 (Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh).

With David’s emphasis on texture, opulence and colour he achieves a representation which epitomises magnificence and rivals the portraiture of his best French contemporaries. Continuing their legacy of artistic patronage, the Stuarts made their court in Rome an important centre for painting, employing the leading Italian portraitists, not only including David, but also Francesco Trevisani, Louis-Gabriel Blanchet and Rosalba Carriera. Portraits were a central ingredient of the long campaign of political propaganda to win support for the Jacobite cause.

Edward Corp, who has also made the comparison with the portrait in Warsaw, compares the present painting with two other portraits: one in the collection of Irma de Greska, Budapest: an unidentified young man, with the longer wig and fuller cravat of the 1720s, signed on the back by David and dated by him 1725/Rome, Patrizi Collection: A portrait of Marchese Giovanni Chigi Montorto, with the shorter wig and simpler cravat of the 1730s. As this portrait is remarkably close to the present painting, it is reasonable to assume that they were both painted at approximately the same time. A tentative identification of the sitter as either Marchese Fabio Albergati or Conte Girolamo Formigliari has been suggested.