* Pier Francesco Mola Coldrerio 1612 - 1666 Rome

We are grateful to Dr. Francesco Petruzzi who, based on photographs, confirms the present painting to be an autograph work by Mola and dates it to his late period, circa 1665, showing the continuing  influence of Guercino on Mola's style.   She has also suggested that the sitter is most probably the artist's father, Giovan Battista Mola who himself was an architect.  The physionomy of the sitter relates to a portrait by the artist of his father in the Accademia di San Luca, Rome, of 1661 (see G. Incisa della Rocchetta, La  collezione dei ritratti dell'Accademia di San Luca, Rome 1979, no. 106).  In the present case, it appears as if the artist has portrayed his father as a biblical figure or a philosopher.

Petruzzi also notes that in the posthumous valuation of the collection of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Costaguti done by the artist Giuseppe Passeri in 1712 there was listed as item 61 "una Testa di vecchio, in tela da testa, del Mola" with dimensions corrisponding roughly to the present painting.  Costaguti had been a major patron of Mola and owned a number of paintings by him, including a Baptist Preaching which may be the picture formerly in the Ojetti collection, Florence.  In addition, the Cardinal commissioned a fresco for Palazzo Costaguti, Rome depicting Bacchus and Ariadne (see R.Cocke, Pier Francesco Mola, Oxford 1972, p. 21).