PIER FRANCESCO CITTADINI | Portrait of a Lady, three-quarter length, in an elaborately decorated silk red dress with white lace and a sheer falling collar

oil on canvas

The canvas is lined. Underneath an uneven varnish, an elegant sitter with some loss of detail to the darker areas, though those. There is some discoloration on the shadows, like on the sitter's face and gown. Tiny dots of loss scattered along the edges with some strengthened like in the top left, center, and right quadrants. These fluoresce under UV on the background, as well as what could possibly be a spot of old repair at center right. Small lines of inpainting fluoresce on the sitter's face, with a spot of retouching on the center of her forehead. Further spots of retouches are scattered on the sitter's gown, chest, and hand. Offered in an elaborately carved giltwood frame with some minor wear and tear.
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The Milanese born Cittadini traveled to Bologna in the early 1630s, when he entered the studio of Guido Reni. His career would ultimately take him to Rome, where he would begin to develop as a multi-faceted professional painter, capable of producing high quality pictures in a variety of genres, including portraiture, still life, and landscapes. His portraits have a characteristically Lombard sense of realism, combined with an acute attention to detail in the elaborate lace and silk costumes of his female sitters. This specific approach to portraiture would have a direct impact on the younger artists to rise to prominence in his wake, perhaps most notably Jacob Ferdinand Voet.