[...] the painting stands out “among the portraits of the [late] Milanese period […] for the confidence and informality with which the painter reveals his humanity”.

The painting was purchased by Francesco Federico Cerruti in 1998 at a Christie’s auction in London but may well have circulated in Milan previously, as it was brought to the attention of the noted Italian art historian Mina Gregori by Enos Malagutti, a restorer and connoisseur very active in the rediscovery of the painter’s works in the Lombardy region, and by the well-known Milanese antiques dealer Alessandro Orsi.¹ 

It presents a close-up portrait of a “giovin signore” or young gentleman of 18th-century Milan, his face squarely framed on either side by the curls of a powdered wig tied at the back with a ribbon. His dark-blue tailcoat, set off by a red overgarment that has slipped down from his shoulders, is worn with nonchalance, open at the breast to show the shirt with vertical ruches. 

Here we see the gift for portraiture of this great Lombard painter, known above all for large, epic depictions of the poor. This is a work of his maturity, more in line with the approach of international portrait painting from Venice to Paris, while the direct and empathetic gaze of the subject is fully recognisable as a stylistic hallmark of Ceruti. As Professor Gregori aptly observes, the painting stands out “among the portraits of the [late] Milanese period […] for the confidence and informality with which the painter reveals his humanity”.² 

There are also singular stylistic similarities between this work and one with the same title unanimously recognised as a masterpiece of Ceruti’s late period, namely the Ritratto di gentiluomo of the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo in Brescia (inv. no. 1598). It is no coincidence that this work appeared in an exhibition of the arts in the era of Giuseppe Parini as a painting emblematic of the splendour of 18thcentury Milanese society as described in the great Lombard writer’s works.³ Singular, although not unique in Ceruti’s work, is the illusionistic definition of a picture within the picture. The subject is represented inside an oval shape against the brown background, almost as though to simulate the presence of a wall on which the portrait is hung. This pictorial device was used in more or less the same period to masterly and truly theatrical effect in two works painted as companion pieces (Turin, Galleria Sabauda, inv. nos. 1047 and 1048), where the subjects are presented in faux frames on the wall partially covered by drapes.⁴ 

Alessandro Morandotti 

¹ Gregori 1982. 

² Ibid., p. 472. 

³ F. Frangi, in Milan 1999, p. 229, no. 29. 

⁴ F. Frangi, in Varese 2002, pp. 312-315, nos. 131 and 132.