Milanese School Painter, Portrait of a Lady of the Odescalchi Family

The Portrait of Lady Odescalchi, dating to the decade 1670–1680, belongs to the context of Lombard portraiture in the last quarter of the seventeenth century — a period in which the genre experienced an intense flourishing, supported by the great aristocratic families, protagonists of a renewed season of patronage and social affirmation.

The work stands out for the refined elegance of its composition: the female figure, depicted full-length and in an almost frontal pose, dominates a sumptuous setting filled with velvets, brocades, and ceremonial draperies. The artist employs a meticulous rendering of fabrics and jewels, a pictorial translation of a taste that, in those years, sought to exalt the ornamental aspect and symbolic value of aristocratic attire.

The white lapdog on the table, together with the ruby ring and the silver medallion, alludes to the nuptial sphere and the theme of conjugal fidelity, suggesting that the painting was intended as a prenuptial or wedding portrait.

From a stylistic point of view, the portrait reveals a transitional language: the artist, still bound to the tradition of Carlo Ceresa in the solid construction of the figure and the composure of the composition, departs from it through a greater luminosity of the flesh tones and a metallic clarity of modeling, far from the soft earthy hues of the Bergamasque master. The painter aligns more closely with the trend represented by the Arconati female portraits, formerly (though now tentatively) attributed to Pier Francesco Cittadini, in which virtuosity in the rendering of textiles and precision of detail reach heights of spectacular refinement.

Although the author remains unidentified, the painting belongs to the realistic–sumptuous current of Milanese portraiture of the late seventeenth century, characterized by a close relationship between painting and the decorative arts (goldsmiths, weavers, embroiderers), following a practice common among artists “born in the tailor’s shop,” as noted by Morandotti.

The anonymous painter, though unaware of the more modern solutions introduced in Milan by Jacob Ferdinand Voet and Simon Adler around 1677–1680 — softer and more psychologically engaging — demonstrates solid technical mastery and a taste still rooted in Baroque decorativism. His clear, luminous, and precise style, attentive to material detail and the sheen of fabrics, makes the Odescalchi Portrait a work of high artistic quality, representative of Lombard figurative culture in the mid-1670s and of the aristocratic language of representation in the Baroque age.

The painting is accompanied by an expertise by Professor Giuseppe Sava.