Sebastiano Ceccarini (Italian 1703-1783), Portrait of a Gentleman

Sebastiano Ceccarini (Italian 1703-1783)Portrait of a Gentleman, holding a plan of Bernini's Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, RomeOil on canvas97 x 72cm (38 x 28¼ in.)Provenance:Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, LondonLiterature:P. Conisbee, Review of the exhibition 'Claude to Gericault: the arts in France 1630-1830, in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 1000, July 1986, p. 534, reproduced fig. 83 (as Italian between Francesco Trevisani and Pier Leone Ghezzi);F. Petrucci in Dipinti Tra Rococo e Neoclassicismo da Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia e da altre raccolte, exhibition catalogue Cavallino di Lecce, Palazzo Ducale dei Castromediano, 2013, pp. 45-46, illustrated fig. 40 (as Sebastiano Ceccarini)Exhibited:Agnews, London Claude to Gericault: the arts in France 1630-1830, 25 July 1986 (as anonymous French)Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, Rome, with its distinctive elliptical ground plan, is considered a Baroque masterpiece. In 1658 Cardinal Camillo Francesco Maria Pamphili commissioned the architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini to design a Jesuit church on the Quirinal Hill. Bernini thought the church one of his most perfect works; his son, Domenico, recalled that in his later years, Bernini spent hours sitting inside it, appreciating what he had achieved.