Giuseppe Maria Crespi, known as “Lo Spagnolo”(Bologna, 1665 - 1747)
Portrait of Cardinal Prospero Lambertini, 1739/1740
oil on canvas; inv. P 108
acquisition: museum purchase, 1960
In 1739, Crespi painted a large portrait of Cardinal Lambertini,
Archbishop of Bologna. The next year, the prelate became Pope Benedict
XIV and Crespi had to revise the clothing in the painting to include
the pontifical insignia. This work is today housed at the Musei
Vaticani. The canvas displayed here, with the sitter wearing the
vestments of a cardinal, is either a preparatory sketch, or, given the
finished state of the painting, a souvenir of the work in its first
version. Despite the presence of some typical features of courtly
portraiture (clothing, the subject standing in front of a desk, the
regal motif of red curtain) this work has an amicable tone and a vivid
directness towards the viewer. Thanks to its fluid brushstrokes and
casual execution, it communicates a feeling of familiarity between the
artist and the cardinal.
