Portrait of Fortunato Martinengo Cesaresco is a 1542 oil on canvas painting by Moretto da Brescia, now in the National Gallery, London.[1] The use of X-ray photography during a 1973 restoration showed a table in front of the man with an open book on it.[2]

History

The earliest mention of the work is in a mid 19th-century inventory of count Teodoro Lechi's collection - the family archives add that he acquired the work in Brescia on 19 September 1843 and on 9 January 1854 sold it on to Charles Henfrey of Turin, where Lechi was exiled from 1849 to 1859.[3] In 1975 Cecil Gould cited documents in the National Gallery stating that in 1843 countess Marzia Martinengo Cesaresco had sold the painting to Lechi, who had married her daughter Clara.[4] It passed from Henfry to Otto Mündler in 1856 and two years later was acquired by its present owner.[5]

References

Bibliography

• (in Italian) Camillo Boselli, Il Moretto, 1498-1554, in "Commentari dell'Ateneo di Brescia per l'anno 1954 – Supplemento", Brescia 1954
• Joseph Archer Crowe, Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, A history of painting in North Italy, London 1871
• (in Italian) Pietro Da Ponte, L'opera del Moretto, Brescia 1898
• William Dickes, A greek motto misread at the National Gallery, in "Athenaeum", n.3423, 3 June 1893
• György Gombosi, Moretto da Brescia, Basel 1943
• Cecil Gould, The sixteenth-century italian schools, London 1975
• (in Italian) Pompeo Molmenti, Il Moretto da Brescia, Firenze 1898
• (in Italian) Pier Virgilio Begni Redona, Alessandro Bonvicino – Il Moretto da Brescia, Editrice La Scuola, Brescia 1988
• (in Italian) Ottavio Rossi, Elogi historici di bresciani illustri, Brescia 1620
• (in Italian) Adolfo Venturi, Storia dell'arte italiana, volume IX, La pittura del Cinquecento, Milano 1929

This article about a sixteenth-century painting is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e