Portrait of Alessandri

Giovanni Battista Moroni rendered this portrait of Prospero Alessandri around 1560. The oil on canvas measures 105 by 84 centimeters and exemplifies the elegantly realistic portrait style that made Moroni one of the great portraitists of the Italian Cinquecento.

Prospero Alessandri was a member of a prominent Bergamo family. Moroni, himself from Bergamo, specialized in capturing the local nobility and clergy with notable naturalism. His portraits avoided the grand mythological settings favored by Venetian painters, instead presenting sitters in understated compositions that emphasized individual character over social display.

The painting's provenance traces back to Alessandri himself in 1580, then passed through the Francesco Alessandri Collection in Bergamo before entering the art market in the twentieth century. It was acquired in 2004 by Prince Hans-Adam II and now belongs to the Liechtenstein Princely Collections in Vaduz, where it joins other Moroni portraits in demonstrating his mastery of the genre.