Pompeo Batoni Lucca 1708 - 1787 Rome

Orsini collection, Palazzo Orsini, Monte Savello, Rome, where first recorded in an inventory of 1794 and again in 1817;
Palazzo Orsini Sale, Rome, Sangiorgi, 12-23 March 1896, lot 570;
Private collection, Paris;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 8 December 1972, lot 70, for 13,000 gns. to Varasei;
Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Lady'), London, Christie's, 3 December 1997, lot 82, where purchased by a private collector;
By whom sold, New York, Sotheby's, 24 January 2002, lot 44, where acquired by the present owner.

A. Busiri Vici, "Addenda alla ritrattistica del romano Pietro Labruzzi", in L'Urbe, vol. XXXVIII, January-February 1975, p. 27, reproduced fig. 2;
G. Rubsamen, The Orsini Inventories, Malibu 1981, p. 119, no. 29, p. 125, no. 19, and p. 133;
A.M. Clark, Pompeo Batoni, ed. E.P. Bowron, Oxford 1985, pp. 271-72, cat. no. 206, reproduced plate 193;
A. Busiri Vici, "Addenda alla ritrattistica del romano Pietro Labruzzi", in Scritti d'Arte, ed. B. Jatta, Rome 1990, p. 12, reproduced fig. 2.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a fairly old, but firm lining and strong old stretcher. There had previously been a few small damages in the upper sky and in the curtain at the upper right corner, which now have old discoloured retouching, and there is some other minor old darkened retouching at the edges with rather more in the upper corners. This is unusually slight damage, and the overall condition is remarkably fine, with beautifully intact final glazes. There is one little recent cluster of tiny pierced holes in her chest, now filled and retouched, with a rash of minute excrescences behind, maybe the result of a game of darts? The surrounding surface has not been dented. The characteristically even flawless brushwork has aged immaculately, with smooth unbroken glazing in the modelling of the flesh painting throughout, for example in the gold binding of the copy of Petrarch reflected onto the arm, and the natural mellowing of the surface is finely preserved in all the classical details and drapery, with increased luminosity and depth of colour. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

The sitter in this portrait, the Principessa Giacinta Orsini, was the daughter of Principe Domenico Orsini and Principessa Anna Erba Odescalchi. She married Antonio Buoncompagni Ludovisi, the Duca d'Arce, in 1757 and probably sat to Batoni for this portrait around the same time. Although just sixteen at the time of her marriage, her dowry was so large that Pope Benedict XIV had to make an execption to the bull of Pope Sixtus V, in which large dowries had been prohibited. Giacinta died during childbirth just two years later but in her short life she gained a reputation as a celebrated poetess and keen patron of the arts. She was a member of the Accademia dell'Arcadi, a Roman literary society, where she was given the name Euridice Aiacense and was described by a fellow-member of the Accademia, Madame du Boccage, as a 'goddess of Rome'. Batoni chose to represent his sitter as an arcadian muse: she holds a lyre and laurel wreath, the first alluding to Erato and the second to Calliope (muses of lyric and love poetry and epic poetry respectively), and the literary volumes resting on the clavichord beside her are by Petrarch and 'Anacron' (the latter presumably to be identified with the Greek classical poet Anacreon). The scene in the background, showing Pegasus on Mount Helicon creating the fountain of Hippocrene, was sacred to the muses and was said to inspire poetry. And yet Giacinta's costume is anything but classical: her lace-trimmed dress and ermine-lined cloak both denote her weath, and her pretty smiling face emphasises her youth.

The portrait is first recorded as hanging in the Palazzo Orsini in Rome (referred to as the Palazzo Savelli-Orsini in the inventories) in 1794: "Un quadro per alto di p.mi 7 e 5 con cornice a trè ordini d'Intaglio dorata a buono rapp.te il Ritratto della Ch: Me: di D.a Giacinta Orsini Duchessa d'Arce del Cav.re Pompeo Batoni".¹  The picture hung in the 'Seconda Anticamera' of the apartment rented by Principe D. Filippo Bernualdo Orsini to Cardinal Caprara, on the understanding that the Cardinal was to take good care of the inventoried objects and return them intact. Another inventory drawn up in 1817 lists Batoni's portrait as hanging in the 'Anticamera de Ritratti' in the apartment which the Duca (Orsini) di Gravina rented to the Prussian Minister, Giorgio Niebuhr: "Un quadro per alto di palmi 7 e 5 rapp.te La Ch: Me: di D.a Giacinta Orsini Duchessa d'Arce del Cav.re Pompeo Battoni con cornice a buono a trè ordini d'Intaglio".²

A tremendously successful portraitist, Batoni painted relatively few portraits of women and these were mainly of English visitors to Rome rather than of the Roman nobility itself.³  Apart from his Portrait of the Duchessa Sforza Cesarini, painted in 1768 (today in Birmingham, City Museum and Art Gallery), Batoni only received commissions for Italian female portraits towards the end of his life, in the mid-1780s:⁴ this painting is therefore rather unique in Batoni's œuvre. Its popularity is attested to by an autograph replica of the painting, formerly in a French private collection, and a near-contemporary copy after the composition by Pietro Labruzzi, in the Accademia Arcadica (on loan to the Museo di Roma).⁵

1.  MS. held at the Archivio Capitolino, Rome. Fondo Orsini, Pacco 413, c.7, f.3, inv. no. 29.
2.  MS held at the Archivio Capitolino, Rome. Fondo Orsini, Pacco 414, c.1, f.3r, inv. no. 19.
3.  Batoni painted portraits of the Hon. Mrs. Thomas Barrett-Lennard (1750; see Clark, under Literature, cat. 133A), Lady Caroline Sackville Damer (c.1750; Clark, op. cit., cat. 135), Sarah, Lady Fetherstonhaugh (1751; ibid., cat. 155), Mrs. Ulrick Fetherstonhaugh (1751, ibid., cat. 159).
4.  For example his portraits of the Principessa Cecilia Mahony Giustiniani (1785, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh; Clark, op. cit., cat. 456), Contessa Maria Benedetta di San Martino (1785, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; ibid., cat. 458) and Marchesa Barbara Durazzo Brignole (1786, whereabouts unknown; ibid., cat. 463).
5.  For Batoni's autograph replica see Clark, ibid., p. 272, cat. no. 207. This or another autograph replica was sold, London, Christie's, 23 April 1982, lot 56. Pietro Labruzzi's copy after Batoni's original is reproduced in G. Sestieri, Repertorio della pittura romana della fine del Seicento e del Settecento, Turin 1994, vol. II, fig. 563.