CARLO CERESA | PORTRAIT OF BARONE IGNAZIO DE PIZZIS, FULL-LENGTH

Anonymous sale, Paris, Artcurial, 13 November 2013, lot 58 (as Attributed to Luigi Gentile, Portrait of a Gentleman);

Offered for sale ("Property of a Gentleman"), London, Christie's, 9 December 2016, lot 179 (as Carlo Ceresa, Portrait of Barone Ignazio de Pizzis), where unsold.

Simone Facchinetti has confirmed the attribution of this portrait to Carlo Ceresa, one of the most important Lombard portraitists of his time, and dates it to the 1650s based on comparisons with signed and dated works from this period. In the seventeenth century, the noble de Pizzis family was rooted in Ortona, in Abruzzo, although the surname is very common both in Emilia and in Lombardy. Caterina Spinelli, sister of the Bergamese painter Giovan Battista Spinelli, married Marchese Ludovico de Pizzis, which could explain Ceresa's connection to the Abruzzo nobility.¹

1. N. Spinosa, "Additions to Giovan Battista Spinelli," in Paragone, no. 411, 1984, p. 39.