Giovanni Maria Delle Piane, known as Il Mulinaretto (1660-1745) Portrait of a man

Giovanni Maria DELLE PIANE, known as IL MULINARETTO
(Genoa, 1660 - Monticelli d'Ongina, 1745)
Portrait of a man
Oil on oval canvas
H. 108 cm; L. 83 cm

Provenance: Nino Ferrari Collection, Genoa, 1922

Exhibition: 1922, "Mostra della pittura italiana del Seicento et del Settecento", Florence, Palazzo Pitti, no. 707 (Label on frame)

The artist, better known by his nickname Mulinaretto, inherited from a miller grandfather, was born in Genoa in 1660. At the age of ten, he began attending the studio of Giovan Battista Merano, where he completed his apprenticeship as a painter and remained until 1676, when he moved to Rome to perfect his skills under Giovan Battista Gaulli, il Baciccio. It was during this Roman sojourn, which lasted some eight years, that the young man developed "the frank ability to translate the most delicate and difficult physiognomies accurately onto canvas" (Ratti 1769, p. 147), thus demonstrating a remarkable aptitude for portraiture. Returning to Genoa in 1684, he was able to put his ability to paint the human face to good use, satisfying the taste of the local clientele who recognized him as a gifted, sensitive artist, skilled at satisfying their needs for social recognition, according to a taste that was in the process of changing during this decade.

Mulinaretto's early works, such as the portraits of Doge Pietro Durazzo (Genoa, National Gallery of Palazzo Spinola), Gian Battista Cattaneo and his wife Maddalena Gentile with a daughter (Genoa, former collection of the Società Levante Assicurazioni), are still in keeping with the Genoese portrait taste of the first half of the 17th century, following the methods of Gio Bernardo Carbone, a disciple of Van Dyck. It was probably towards the end of the century, in the last decade of the 17th century, that the artist renewed his style, adapting to the new fashion for French portraiture in the style of Rigaud and Largillièrre. Works such as the portraits of the House of Doria and the House of Durazzo are characterized by a pleasing "worldliness" and a refined, sometimes even sumptuous, invention of backgrounds.

In 1695, il Mulinaretto, invited by Count Morando, made his first trip to Parma, where he stayed several times, finding favor with the Farnese family: in 1706, the artist painted portraits of Duke Francesco, Duchess Dorothea and Princess Elisabetta Farnese. After several trips to Milan, Delle Piane moved to Parma in 1709, where he was appointed court painter. He returned to Genoa several times to fulfill commissions, around 1714 and 1715, where he immortalized Elisabetta Farnese on the occasion of her marriage to Philip V of Spain; during this same period, he lived in Piacenza, where he remained until 1737. It was probably in these years, towards the middle of the second decade of the eighteenth century, that the artist found a more personal style, in which his various cultural references stand out, blending his Italian and French inspirations.

In 1719, il Mulinaretto declined an invitation to travel to Spain, probably from Elisabetta Farnese. Several years later, in 1737, he stayed in Naples at the court of Charles Bourbon, Elisabetta's son. As chamber painter, he portrayed King Charles and his wife. In 1741, the artist left Naples for Genoa, where he again painted the local nobility, before retiring in 1744 to Monticelli d'Ongina near Piacenza, where he died the following year.