Giovanni Battista Gaulli,
called Baciccio (1639-1709)

Italian

Portrait of Gianlorenzo Bernini
(1598-1680) about 1675

Oil on canvas

This penetrating portrayal of the leading
sculptor and architect of seventeenth-century
Rome was painted when Bernini was in his late
seventies. The portrait served as the model
for the engraved frontispiece to an important
biography of Bernini by Filippo Baldinucci,
published in 1682. A native of Genoa, Baciccio
arrived in Rome in the late 1650s and Bernini
did much to foster his career.

Purchased with the aid of the Art Fund 1998 (NG 2694)

ArtFund™