(Genoa 1639–1709 Rome)
Portrait of a woman in Oriental costume,
oil on canvas, 60 x 44 cm, unframed

Provenance:
possibly collection of Filippo II Colonna (1663–1714), Rome;
Private collection, England;
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Francesco Petrucci for suggesting the attribution and for his help in cataloguing.

This quarter-length portrait represents a young woman in exotic, oriental style dress: she wears a turban with a gold brooch ornamented with a diamond and three baroque pearls, with matching pearl earrings; the ornate gold bodice of her ultramarine-blue dress is likewise ornamented with pearls and precious stones.

The sitter is seemingly a noblewoman of princely dignity, an oriental queen perhaps, although her features appear Italian or Mediterranean. The young woman is represented with great realism; her smiling expression is vividly rendered, in keeping with the prevailing taste for immediacy in capturing emotion and mood: this descriptive quality is typical of Bernini’s school of portraiture which was developed in seventeenth century Rome.

The execution of this picture can be given to Giovanni Battista Gaulli called il Baciccio, one of the leading portraitists active at Rome and in Italy, during the second half of the seventeenth century. According to Petrucci, the stylistic peculiarities of this painting, including the polished finish of the flesh tones, point to an advanced date for this work, during the artist’s full maturity, around 1680–1690.

The work’s lively naturalism with the sitter’s features rendered frontally, yet turned slightly to one side, as if distracted by an event happening beyond the picture plain, the luminous palette, the animated brushstrokes and the fluid layering of paint with which the robes are depicted, as well as the overall effect of baroque exuberance, are all distinctive of Gaulli oeuvre. Points of comparison can be found with the Portrait of Eleonora Buoncompagni Borghese in the Galleria degli Uffizi (inv. no. 1890/n. 4325). The closest comparison however is with the Portrait of a Lady as Cleopatra from the Suida Manning Collection in the Blanton Museum, Austin, which presents the subject wearing the same type of headpiece and very similarly dressed (see J. Bober in: Capolavori della Suida-Manning Collection, exhibition catalogue, ed. by J. Bober, G. Bora, Milan 2001, cat. II.14, p. 98).

In this regard it is notable to observe that in the inventory of the inheritance of Filippo II Colonna of 1714 there is a record of ‘Quindici quadri dj palmi tre per alto rapp.ti diversi ritrattj vestiti parte alla persiana, et altri all’Armena con sue cornice simili, con fondj gialli, e battenti doratj Ereditarj del S.re Don Filippo chia: me: dj Baciccio’ [‘Fifiteen paintings three palmi high representing various portraits, some in Persian dress, and others Armenian, with similar frames, with ochre backgrounds and gilded mounts, Inheritance of S.re Don Filippo chia: me: by Baciccio’] (see E. A. Safarik, Italian Inventories 2. Collezione dei dipinti Colonna, inventari 1611-1795, London – Paris 1996, p. 272). According to Petrucci, it is possible that this painting belonged to this lost gallery of orientalising subjects, not only on account of the correspondences in subject and size, but also because on the back of the canvas the number ‘ten’ is inscribed in roman numerals ‘X’ as if to indicate that the painting belonged to a specific group forming a thematic hang within a room.