Portrait of Contessa Rosa Arconati, Sister Gioseffa Marianna in the Santa Maria Maddalena monastery in Porta Lodovico, Milan, daughter of Conte Giuseppe Maria Arconati,
oil on canvas, 207 x 119 cm, framed

Provenance:
Very likely commissioned as part of a series together with further portraits of the three other daughters of Count Giuseppe Maria Arconati for the Villa Arconati in Lombardy;
Art market, London

Literature:
G. Treccani degli Alfieri, Fondazione Treccani degli Alfieri per la storia di Milano, in: Storia di Milano, Milan, I958, XI, p. 555–558, ill.;

D. Owen, Representing the Family: Portraits and Purposes in Early Modern Italy, in: The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 17, no. 1; The Evidence of Art: Images and Meaning, in: History, summer 1986, p. 28–29; R. L. Kendrick, Celestial Sirens: Nuns and Their Music in Early Modern Milan, Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 121, note 106, 107

The present painting is one of four portraits of the daughters of the Milanese art collector, Count Giuseppe Maria Arconati. The series was noticed upon its publication in 1958 in its entirety (see literature). The present portrait is the second picture, which has reappeared. The first portrait, appearing for the first time only several years ago, was of Rosa’s sister Livia, which Daniele Benati attributed to Pier Francesco Cittadini (see Dorotheum, Vienna, 13 October 2010, lot 331). Benati has meanwhile revised this attribution. Although the series is stylistically close to Cittadini’s late oeuvre, it appears to be painted by another, very talented hand.