Lot 1079 | Portrait of a Young Girl in a Red Dress

NUVOLONE, GIUSEPPE
Milan 1619 - 1703


Title: Portrait of a Young Girl in a Red Dress.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Mounting: Relined.
Measurement: 200 x 120cm.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.
Provenance:
Private ownership, Italy.

Literature:
F. M. Ferro: Nuvolone. Una famiglia di pittori nella Milano del '600. Soncino (Cremona) 2003, p. 247, ill. 99b.

Exhibitions:
"L' anima e il volto. Ritratto e fisiognomica da Leonardo a Bacon". Ausst. Civico Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Mailand, 30. October 1998 - 14. March1999, p. 205 with ill.;
"Piacenza, terra di frontiera. Pittori lombardi e liguri del Seicento; dipinti e disegni inediti". Exhib. Galleria Rosso Tiziano Arte, Piacenza, 31. March 2010 - 27. April 2010, p. 81 with ill.

The present painting, which shows a young lady in a floor-length red and yellow dress, is a work whose authenticity is beyond doubt: The portrait is included in the 2003 monograph on the Nuvolone family of painters by Filippo Maria Ferro and was exhibited as part of the exhibitions "L' anima e il volto. Ritratto e fisiognomica da Leonardo a Bacon" (Civico Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan, 30 October 1998 - 14 March 1999) and "Piacenza, terra di frontiera. Pittori lombardi e liguri del Seicento; dipinti e disegni inediti" (Galleria Rosso Tiziano Arte, Piacenza, 31 March - 27 April 2010).
The work belongs to a small group of portraits that can be attributed with certainty to Giuseppe Nuvolone, who is best known for his large paintings with historical or profane subjects and the altarpieces for churches in Milan, Cremona and Brescia. This is therefore a rare work in the painter's oeuvre, which is also enhanced by the sumptuous frame in colour that relates to the painting.
There is no precise information about the artistic beginnings of Giuseppe Nuvolone, who probably received his training from his older brother Carlo Francesco. Together with his brother, Giuseppe worked continuously and only from the time of his brother's death in 1661 was he able to finally break away from the family's influence and establish himself as one of the leading figures of the Baroque in Lombardy. He was in great demand, especially for public, secular and ecclesiastical commissions.
Giuseppe Nuvolone worked mainly in Lombardy and Piedmont, but stayed in Rome in 1667 when, together with the architect Girolamo Quadrio and the sculptor Giuseppe Vismara, he received the protection of Cardinal Giberto III Borromeo for some time. In the later style that characterises Nuvolone's dense production, there is no concrete reference to this experience: the artist remained faithful to the Lombard style in his painting throughout his life.
In the present portrait, however, influences of Roman painting or of the portrait painting that became fashionable in Rome in the second half of the 17th century, whose main representatives were Jacob Ferdinand Voet and Giovanni Maria Morandi, can be discerned - even if only indirectly.
It is still unclear who the sitter is, whether it is a Roman girl or a Lombard noblewoman portrayed by Nuvolone - after his return home. The figure is in a neutral architectural space framed by balustrades, curtains and draperies, which delimit the figurative space and at the same time embellish it with the velvet flashes. The young woman looks almost awkward in her sumptuous dress embroidered with gold and silver threads; perhaps she has only just officially entered the world of balls and receptions and is therefore still shy.