Pierre Subleyras Circle

Circle of PIERRE SUBLEYRAS (France,1699- Italy,1749).
"Portrait of Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga".
Oil on canvas.
Measurements: 70 x 50 cm.
This portrait of Valenti Gonzaga, follows faithfully his model conserved in the Cini Gallery, painted c. 1745 by the painter Pierre Subleyras, although in this case the portrait is smaller and the artist reduces the bust.
The protagonist, Silvio Valenti Gonzaga, a member of an illustrious Mantuan family, was a renowned humanist and diplomat, whose penchant for the sciences, geography and the collection of antiquities is reflected in the arrangement of the surrounding elements. He was elected cardinal in 1738 by Pope Clement XII.
Pierre Subleyras, on the other hand, represents one of the most remarkable cases of success of a French painter in the Roman artistic environment. Trained in the French academic tradition and winner of the prestigious Prix de Rome, Subleyras consolidated in the papal capital a style that fused the compositional clarity of French classicism with a warmer chromatic sensibility and a psychological penetration uncommon in his time. His ability to illuminate the personality of his sitters without resorting to rhetorical artifice made him a sought-after portraitist among the ecclesiastical and intellectual elite. At the same time, his religious work, particularly his large canvases for Roman churches, demonstrates his mastery of naturalism and his attention to formal rigor.