Caricature of Cardinal Crescenzi, half-length, in profile to the left (recto); A caricature of the same, full-length, wearing a long cloak (verso)

Pietro Paolo Crescenzi (1572-1645), scion of an old Roman family, was successively bishop of Rieti and Orvieto and was elected Cardinal in 1611. Like his brother Giovanni Battista (1577-1635), whose biography was included in Baglione's Vite dei Pittori, Scultori e Architetti, Pietro Paolo was an amateur artist who studied with Roncalli. He was also a patron of Claude, who was commissioned to decorate the family's palazzo by the Pantheon (M. Roethlisberger, Claude Lorrain, The Paintings, New York, 1979, I, pp. 89-90). Pietro Paolo died on 19 February 1645, and was buried in the Church of Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome.
Nicholas Turner has confirmed the attribution to Mola on studying the drawing in the original.