A bearded man, bust-length, his hands resting on a wooden staff

This wonderful study, previously unknown and probably made ad vivum, demonstrates the great sensitivity and painterly lyricism that made Ubaldo Gandolfi one of the outstanding figures in Bolognese painting in the second half of the eighteenth century. He showed a rare talent for head studies: executed with rapid brushstrokes, laden with paint, they inevitably manage to capture an elusive sense of personality in each subject. There was a widespread demand for such characterful, often idealised head studies in the eighteenth century, typified by the likes of Jean-Baptiste Greuze and Pietro Rotari, yet Gandolfi distinguished himself by pursuing a greater sense of naturalism and spontaneity, and, as a result, a more profound psychological intensity.

We are grateful to Donatella Biagi Maino for confirming the attribution and for her assistance in cataloguing this work. She dates the picture to 1775-80, and notes that the same figure reappears as a model on a number of other occasions: for example the Friar at prayer, with his hands clasped together in the Museo Provinciale dei Minori Cappuccini , Bologna (D. Biagi Maino, Ubaldo Gandolfi, Turin, 1990, fig. 210), Bust of a man with his hands joined together (Private collection; ibid., fig. 178) and Bust of a man resting on a stick (Bologna, Private collection; ibid., fig. 156); the latter was part of the collection of Count Gregorio Casali, a significant patron of Ubaldo Gandolfi. The picture may have been conceived as a pendant to the preceding lot made by Ubaldo’s younger brother, Gaetano.