OTTAVIO LEONI (1578-1630)

PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG NOBLEMAN
Bears inscription verso in pencil Ottavio Leoni
Pencil on paper, heightened with white chalk
16.3 x 13.2 cm
 
PROVENANCE
Private collection, France
 
 
 
 
 
We are grateful to Dr Yuri Primarosa and Dr Marco Simone Bolzoni for endorsing the attribution of the present work. We are also grateful to Cordélia Hattori for providing further information on and images of a related copy in the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille, on the verso of another portrait by Leoni himself. 
 
 
The present work is absolutely typical of the artist's intimate drawn portraits: rendered in chalks on a lightly-tined paper, these informal bust-studies marked Leoni out as one of the most sought-after portrait draftsmen of Baroque Rome, with dozens of examples to be found in collections across the world. As with all of these, the portrait was almost certainly produced from life. Leoni was able to capture his clients' likenesses with a remarkable economy of line, rarely spending much if any effort on their costume, and never relying on facial 'types' as so many portraitists did. 
 
The sitter's identity remains elusive at present; however, a copy of our drawing exists in the collection of the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille, with an additional sketch by Leoni himself on the verso.
 
 
Leoni was active primarily in Rome and in his time was considered the most fashionable portraitist in the city. In his Lives of the Artists (1642), Giovanni Baglione - Leoni had drawn his portrait, with that work published as a print in 1625 - said of Leoni’s portraits “…they are so natural and alive, that in that genre one could not do better.” [1]
 
Leoni famously executed the only known contemporary likeness of Caravaggio, and a volume of 27 drawings in the Biblioteca Marucelliana in Florence contains portraits of various seventeenth century painters, sculptors, writers and scientists, many of which were published by Leoni as prints in his own lifetime. Born in Rome, Leoni first trained with his father, Lodovico Leoni. He painted altarpieces for churches in Rome such as an Annunciation for Sant'Eustachio and a Virgin and child with St. Giacinto for Santa Maria della Minerva, and a Saints Charles, Francis, &Nicholas for Sant’ Urbano. He became a member, and later president, of the Accademia di San Luca and a Cavalieri of the Order of Christ, on which occasion he presented to the church of the Academy the Martyrdom of St. Martina.