Portrait of a cleric (possibly Giuliano della Rovere), three-quarter-length, seated, in black, holding his black cap, by a stone console table, an open window beyond

Previously published by Andrea Emiliani as an autograph work by Federico Barocci and tentatively identified as a portrait of Monsignor Giuliano della Rovere in advanced age, the present painting has been the subject of recent scholarly reassessment. Luca Baroni (written communication; 8 November 2025) attributes the portrait to a highly capable collaborator or pupil of Barocci active in the first quarter of the seventeenth century and Keith Christiansen (written communication; 12 November 2025) concurs with this revised assessment.

As first noted by Baroni, the identification of the sitter as a member of the Della Rovere family is supported by the view of the Palazzo Ducale of Urbino and by the carved oak leaf (the heraldic emblem of the Della Rovere) visible on the back of the chair at the joint of the armrest. If the sitter is indeed Giuliano della Rovere, Bishop of Senigallia and a member of the ducal court at Urbino, his death in 1621 would provide a terminus ante quem for the picture's execution.

Baroni has proposed grouping this portrait with two other works he believes to be by the same accomplished hand: a Portrait of a Lady in Black in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg (inv. no. ГЭ-382; formerly given to Barocci), and a Double Portrait, sometimes identified as Giuliano della Rovere and Isabella Vitelli (location unknown, exhibited TEFAF, Maastricht, 2017).

We are grateful to Luca Baroni and Keith Christiansen for their assistance in cataloguing this lot. Baroni intends to publish the present painting in his forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Federico Barocci (as a not autograph work).