Head of a Bearded Man
Domenico Fetti Italian
Not on view
Consecutively active in Rome, Mantua, and Venice, Domenico Fetti is best known for his history paintings, but this drawing clearly exemplyfies his virtuosity as a fine portraitist. The intensity of the gaze of this astutely observed sitter recalls Fetti's celebrated painting, the Portrait of an Actor, in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. The highly controlled pastel technique Fetti is displaying here might have come from his master Lodovico Cigoli or might have been inspired by earlier examples by Federico Barocci and Jacopo Bassano. The attribution to Domenico Fetti goes back to the time of the French collector Pierre-Jean Mariette, whose attribution is elegantly inscribed on his signature-blue mount.
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