Portrait of a Nobleman thought to be Giuseppe Roberto Solaro, Conte di Govone e Marchese di Breglio (c. 1680-1764)
Oil on canvas laid to wood panel
26 x 22 3/4 inches (66 x 56.8 cm)
Frame 32 3/4 x 29 1/8 inches (83.3 x 74 cm)
Provenance:
The collection of Henry A. Patterson

In his long and varied career, the Italian portrait painter Giorgio Domenico Dupra (1689 – 1770) worked for three royal houses. Born in Turin, he studied painting in Rome with Francesco Trevisani, after which he traveled to Portugal to work as a court painter for King John V. In the 1730s and 1740s, he was back in Rome, employed in part by painting members of the court of the exiled Stuarts of Great Britain. Finally, he returned to Turin around 1750, where he became a court painter for the House of Savoy.

The sitter here wears two important emblems of his membership in the Savoyard nobility. Suspended from his neck is the collar and badge of the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation, which was the premier dynastic order of chivalry of the royal House of Savoy. He also wears a breastplate bearing a cross with trefoil ends over a Maltese cross, the insignia of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, another dynastic order of knighthood bestowed by the same royal house.

The painting bears the family crest of the Solaro family of Piedmont, which had been of service to the House of Savoy for centuries. The identification of the sitter as Giuseppe Roberto Solaro, Conte di Govone and Marchese di Breglio (c. 1680-1764), is based on the date when the portrait was probably painted (ca. 1750), along with the dates of Giuseppe Solaro's birth (ca. 1680), of his becoming a knight of the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation (1737), and his becoming s member of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (1747). Giuseppe Solaro was a diplomat and an advisor to Carlo Emanuele III, Duke of Savoy, King of Sardinia, and ruler of the Savoyard States, whose portrait was also painted by Dupra.

The paint surface is uneven from its attachment to the panel. Scattered areas restoration in the lower right quadrant. Contours of the figure reinforced.


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