Bernardo Keilhau, called Monsù Bernardo

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 11 June 1980, lot 52;

With Galleria Megna, Rome;

Private collection, Rome.

M. Heimbürger, Bernardo Keilhau detto Monsù Bernardo, Rome 1988, p. 167, no. 35, reproduced in colour pp. 167 and 17 as a detail;

M. Heimbürger, Eberhart Keilhau, 1624–1687, Copenhagen 2014, pp. 164–65, no. 50⁽³⁵⁾, reproduced in colour p. 165.

Thought to have been painted in c. 1653, this painting was completed during the artist's three-year residence in Venice, before moving to Bergamo in 1654.¹ The portrait depicts an elderly woman wearing a Venetian shawl, holding a plant (possibly a rose) in a terracotta pot, with leaves and twigs woven around her head scarf, suggesting she is the Allegory of the Earth.

¹ Heimbürger 2014, p. 164.