Bishop Alvise Grimani
Bernardo Strozzi·1633 or after
Historical Context
Bernardo Strozzi was the leading Genoese painter of the early Baroque, and this portrait of Bishop Alvise Grimani, painted 1633 or after, shows the artist working at the height of his powers in Venice, where he settled permanently from around 1630. Grimani belonged to one of the most powerful patrician families in Venice, a family that produced several doges and cardinals, and this portrait asserts that lineage through the episcopal vestments and the sitter's confident bearing. Strozzi's portrait style absorbed lessons from Rubens, whom he encountered in Genoa, and from the Venetian colorist tradition going back to Titian, blending northern Baroque vigor with Italian painterly sensibility. The result is a portrait of unusual vitality for its official function, the bishop's face individualized with particular psychological immediacy.
Technical Analysis
Strozzi models the bishop's face with vigorous, loaded brushwork that anticipates the Baroque expressionism of Boni and Magnasco. The red vestments are painted with bravura looseness, the folds described by fluid loaded strokes. Strong directional light creates deep shadows that animate the composition with Caravaggesque intensity.
Provenance
Possibly Countess Lauredana Gatterburg-Morosini [d. 1884], Venice; (her sale, Palazzo Morosini, Venice, 15-22 May 1894, no. 635).[1] (Stefano Bardini [1836-1922], Florence); (his sales, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 26-30 May 1902, no. 603, as by Van Dyck, _Portrait of a Cardinal_[2] and American Art Galleries, New York, 23-27 April 1918, 3rd day, no. 465, as Italian School, _Portrait of a Spanish Cardinal_).[3] (E. & A. Silberman Galleries, New York);[4] purchased 1946 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1961 to NGA. [1] The catalogue gives no dimensions, but describes the picture as a "portrait d'un évêque, représenté en pied, de face, grandeur nature, tenant un livre d'heures." Although no inscription is mentioned, this could also be the copy now in Genoa (see note 9). Many of the items in the sale came from the Grimani collection, as the last member of the Grimani family had married a Morosini in the eighteenth century, as noted in the introduction to the catalogue and by Cesare Augusto Levi, _Le collezioni veneziane d'arte e d'antichità dal secolo XIV ai nostri giorni_, Venice, 1900: lv. [2] No. 676 in the French edition of the catalogue. Both catalogues gave incorrect dimensions (187 x 185 cm or 78 x 53 in.). [3] No documentation survives for the provenances of paintings purchased by Bardini; his surviving papers cover only the period 1905-1915. The Grimani portrait does not appear in earlier Bardini sales. Fiorenza Scalia and Cristina De Benedictis, _Il Museo Bardini a Firenze_, Milan, 1984: 65, 79. [4] According to a note from Silberman (NGA curatorial files), the painting was in the Royal Palace, Budapest, until it was sold at auction in 1868; it subsequently passed to Count Ambroszy-Migaszy, Budapest, before being brought to the United States at an unknown date. It has not been possible to locate sales or other catalogues for these collections, and this information remains unverified. [5] According to Fern Rusk Shapley, _Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XVI-XVIII Century_, London, 1973: 88, and Fern Rusk Shapley, _Catalogue of Italian Paintings_, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:136-137, and to notes in NGA curatorial files. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/392.
