Portrait of Giovanni Battista Sommariva

Pierre-Paul Prud'hon

Download hi-res image TITLE Portrait of Giovanni Battista Sommariva
AUTHOR Pierre-Paul Prud'hon
DATE 1813
OBJECT TYPE AND MATERIAL Oil on canvas
DIMENSIONS cm 210 x 156
INVENTORY 950
ROOM XXXVII
FIRMA P P Prud'hon g bat
Work on display

Sommariva, a politician who had acquired considerable wealth under the Cisalpine Republic, quit politics to becomethe greatest collector of modern art of his day thanks to the huge fortune he had built up. A patron of the most celebrated painters at Napoleon’s court, he also enjoyed close ties with the sculptors Canova and Thorvaldsen. In this portrait, set in an ideal landscape in the English fashion, we see Canova’s masterpieces Palamedes and Terpsichore, which were Sommariva’s property.