Paintings Drawings Sculptures 2016 - Jean Luc Baroni

posts created by each new Pope. Bareheaded, the
young man is shown in an interior, an antechamber
perhaps on the ground floor of a palace, the neutral
background is lit in the Caravaggesque manner with a
vibrant light coming from a source high up and to the
left. As in other portraits painted by Leoni and, notably,
in the important group portrait on copper now in the
Metropolitan Museum which shows a Cardinal with
his cortège, the expressions of the sitters are described
with precision, as are their clothes. In this portrait, the
cloak of black wool is lined with silk satin of the same
colour, the doublet is of pleated brocade lined with
light blue organza, the same, extremely rich material
is used for the bodice and sleeves and the collar and
cuffs are elaborately made from fine linen decorated
with precious Venetian lace.
Thanks to his drawn portraits, which often bear the
names or the titles of the sitters, it has been possible to
identify certain of the painted portraits: this is the case, for
example, with the magnificent Marcantonio Borghese,
Principe di Sulmona in the collection of the Stibbert
Museum in Florence which was identified thanks to
a drawing also now in Florence, in the Accademia
Colombaria. The present young Cavaliere painted on
copper is strikingly like the subject portrayed in two
drawings known from old photographs in the collection
of the Witt Library and that of the Documentation des
Arts Graphiques of the Louvre. One is a portrait made
in black chalk dating from towards 1620 representing
Pietro Paolo Melchiorri in profile and identified by
an inscription, now partially illegible. Related to the
Marquis Benedetto Melchiorri, an art collector and
patron of Caravaggio, it is Pietro Paolo’s likeness which
seems to have been drawn again on a sheet from the
collection of the marquis de Lagoy, showing him a
few years older and in court dress. This latter drawing
would have been made at least ten or twelve years after
the present work. Further research in Roman archives
could possibly clarify the clearly amicable relationship
between the artist and the Melchiorri marchesi who are
most well known for being protectors and patrons to
Caravaggio.
Translated from a text by Professor Francesco Solinas
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