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Lot Essay
Born in Venice, and the nephew of Pope Alexander VIII, Pietro Ottoboni became the most important patron of the arts in Rome from the late 17th century. Indeed, his extravagant patronage, which began after he was appointed Cardinal of San Lorenzo in Damaso and Vice-Chancellor by his great uncle in 1689, covered music, literature and painting, and led to his being labelled by Francis Haskell as 'the most adventurous patron of all time' (F. Haskell, Patrons and Painters, London, 1963, pp. 163-64).
He resided in Rome in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, which he turned into a veritable centre of music, maintaining a large household of highly paid musicians, including at one stage George Frideric Handel, and building a theatre in place of the stables of the palazzo. The stage was swiftly demolished after Innocenzo XII imposed a ban on musical performances in the Cancelleria, but Ottoboni would have a second auditorium constructed, to the design of Filippo Juvarra, when Clement XI was elected to the papacy in 1700. Ottoboni’s staging of commercial musical performances provided a key source of income, and he was a man of considerable expenditure, purchasing Christina of Sweden’s library, as well as acquiring numerous antiquities and paintings throughout his lifetime.
His collection of paintings was vast. He inherited over 300 pictures from his uncle, but his interest in the visual arts meant he had enhanced that collection to well over 400 by the time of his death, including 99 landscapes by Gaspard Dughet. (For more on Ottoboni’s collection see E.J. Olszewski, The Inventory of Paintings of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, New York, 2004). The inventory of pictures after his death revealed some 40 or so works by Francesco Trevisani and Sebastiano Conca (see lot 168), the two artists who were together for more than five decades at court under Ottoboni. Trevisani, though, remained the Cardinal’s favourite artist, from the moment that his eye was initially attracted to the Istrian born painter by the pair of altarpieces he had executed for Cardinal Flavio Chigi in 1687-88. He entered Ottoboni’s service in the late 1690s and apparently had a workshop in the Palazzo della Cancelleria. A request by Ottoboni for a knighthood for Trevisani from King Louis XIV in 1709 failed, but patron and artist would remain very close friends under the former’s death.
Their relationship is recorded in the various portraits by Trevisani of the cardinal, depicted at different ages. The present, finely executed, lot, is known in three other versions listed by Francesco Petrucci, one in a private collection, Fano, one in Galleria Balena, Rimini and another in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome. Petrucci also lists a further two miniature versions of the composition in the Musei Civici, Venice and in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome, see F. Petrucci, Pittura di Ritratto a Roma, Rome 2010, vol. I, pp. 356-7, reproduced, vol. II, p. 909-911, cat. nos. 1357-1363.
We are grateful to Dr Karin Wolfe for confirming the attribution to Trevisani on first-hand inspection and for dating the portrait to c.1709-10. Dr Wolfe also notes that an engraving of the present work by Jean Audran was executed in 1710 to commemorate Ottoboni being nominated Protector of the French Crown at the papal court.
He resided in Rome in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, which he turned into a veritable centre of music, maintaining a large household of highly paid musicians, including at one stage George Frideric Handel, and building a theatre in place of the stables of the palazzo. The stage was swiftly demolished after Innocenzo XII imposed a ban on musical performances in the Cancelleria, but Ottoboni would have a second auditorium constructed, to the design of Filippo Juvarra, when Clement XI was elected to the papacy in 1700. Ottoboni’s staging of commercial musical performances provided a key source of income, and he was a man of considerable expenditure, purchasing Christina of Sweden’s library, as well as acquiring numerous antiquities and paintings throughout his lifetime.
His collection of paintings was vast. He inherited over 300 pictures from his uncle, but his interest in the visual arts meant he had enhanced that collection to well over 400 by the time of his death, including 99 landscapes by Gaspard Dughet. (For more on Ottoboni’s collection see E.J. Olszewski, The Inventory of Paintings of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, New York, 2004). The inventory of pictures after his death revealed some 40 or so works by Francesco Trevisani and Sebastiano Conca (see lot 168), the two artists who were together for more than five decades at court under Ottoboni. Trevisani, though, remained the Cardinal’s favourite artist, from the moment that his eye was initially attracted to the Istrian born painter by the pair of altarpieces he had executed for Cardinal Flavio Chigi in 1687-88. He entered Ottoboni’s service in the late 1690s and apparently had a workshop in the Palazzo della Cancelleria. A request by Ottoboni for a knighthood for Trevisani from King Louis XIV in 1709 failed, but patron and artist would remain very close friends under the former’s death.
Their relationship is recorded in the various portraits by Trevisani of the cardinal, depicted at different ages. The present, finely executed, lot, is known in three other versions listed by Francesco Petrucci, one in a private collection, Fano, one in Galleria Balena, Rimini and another in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome. Petrucci also lists a further two miniature versions of the composition in the Musei Civici, Venice and in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome, see F. Petrucci, Pittura di Ritratto a Roma, Rome 2010, vol. I, pp. 356-7, reproduced, vol. II, p. 909-911, cat. nos. 1357-1363.
We are grateful to Dr Karin Wolfe for confirming the attribution to Trevisani on first-hand inspection and for dating the portrait to c.1709-10. Dr Wolfe also notes that an engraving of the present work by Jean Audran was executed in 1710 to commemorate Ottoboni being nominated Protector of the French Crown at the papal court.