Gaetano Gandolfi San Matteo della Decima near Bologna 1734 - 1802 Bologna

Gaetano, like his brother Ubaldo or his son Mauro, painted a great number of head studies like this one. Most of these were painted from life and though some were re-used for multi-figural compositions, others - as is probably the case here - were intended as works of art per se: compare, for example, his Portrait of a young woman, signed and dated 1777, in a private collection (reproduced in colour in P. Bagni, I Gandolfi. Affreschi Dipinti Bozzetti Disegni, Padua 1992, p. 528, cat. no. 497).

We are grateful to Dott.ssa. Donatella Biagi Maino for endorsing the attribution to Gaetano Gandolfi, on the basis of a colour transparency, and for suggesting a date of execution in the 1760s.