Footnotes

Provenance
Acquired in the first half of the 19th century, probably in Florence, by Patrick Murray of Simprim (b.1770), and thence by descent (according to a label on the reverse)
With Agnew's, London, 1977, by whom sold to
Robert Spencer (1932–1997), and thence by descent to the present owner

Exhibited
Agnew's, London, June 1977 no. 45 as by Francesco Trevisani

Literature
R. Spencer, Early Music, October 1976, 'Chitarrone, Theorbo and Archlute', illustrated as the endpiece
G. Sestieri, Repertorio della pittura Romana della fine del Seicento e del Settecento, Michigan, 1994, vol. III, no. 1074
K. Wolfe, Il Pittore e il musicista il sodalizio artistico tra Francesco Trevisani e Arcangelo Corelli, 2007, p. 185, fig. 16

Whilst the subject of this portrait has not yet been identified, it seems very likely that he was not simply an arch-lute player but was also a composer, the ink well and plume resting on the sheet music beside him implying that he was writing as he played. Robert Spencer, who owned this painting for many years, was himself a lutenist, guitarist, scholar and teacher and formed an appreciable collection of instruments that are now part of the collection of the Royal Academy of Music in London. Spencer put forward the suggestion that the sitter was the mandolin player and composer Francesco Bartolomeo Conti (1681/2-1732) who worked in Vienna, but this seems tenuous as Conti visited Italy only briefly in the 1720s and '30s and it is not even clear that he went to Rome.

The instrument that is being played is a large-bodied archlute most probably of the long-necked variety (this can be inferred from the stringing which differs from that on the shorter-necked liuto attiorbato). This particular archlute was most likely made in Rome, as the decorative scroll at the end of the bridge echoes the same detail seen on earlier lutes by Mattheus Buechenberg who was working in Rome in the 17th century, such details often being repeated by later makers. The position of the musician's right hand, playing very close to the bridge, is typical of the period though is not a technique that a modern-day lutenist would use. Trevisani's familiarity with musicians made him quite particular in his depiction of the hands and there is a number of pentiments in the subject's fingers in the present work that show he reconsidered their positioning as he developed the composition.

Trevisani was a native of Capodistria which at the time was part of the Venetian Republic, and after training in Venice he moved to Rome where he spent the greater part of his life. Cardinal Chigi was an early patron, but in the 1690s Trevisani came into the orbit of an even more significant patron, a fellow Venetian whose support would endure for over 35 years and who would shape the course of his career. Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (1667-1740) rose to the position of Vice Chancellor under his uncle, Pope Alexander VIII (1610-1691), and made his seat in the Palazzo della Cancelleria a hub for the arts, giving lodgings not just to Trevisani, but a number of musicians, poets and dramatists. Trevisani shared the cardinal's enthusiasm for art in all its forms, in addition to being a painter he was also a poet, amateur actor and dramatist, embodying the qualities of what Ottoboni would have regarded as the ideal artist. In the Cancelleria he had access to a small theatre, remodelled by the architect Fillipo Juvarra (1678-1736) in which to stage his improvised performances. In the fertile atmosphere of the Ottoboni court his colleagues included the composers Bernardo Pasquini (1637-1710), Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725), Antonio Caldara (1670-1736) and Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713). Trevisani's association with Corelli was particularly close: he painted the musician's portrait and Corelli is known to have owned 22 of his paintings.

After the death of Carlo Maratta in 1713 Trevisani became the preeminent painter in Rome. His works were greatly in demand from the clergy, Roman nobility and an international clientele of visiting foreigners. Aside from his sacred and secular compositions he painted a significant number of portraits; many of his subjects were English or Scottish, including a number of Jacobite sympathisers attached to the Stuart court in Rome. His studio in the Cancelleria became a destination for travellers to Rome and Karin Wolfe has suggested that the tradition of Grand Tour portraiture, which was to become de rigeur for visiting milordi later in the 18th century, saw its inception in Trevisani's studio. However it is portraits such as the present work that give us an insight into Trevisani's more personal interests: his appreciation of music and theatre, which he was able to explore in the atmosphere of cultural exchange created by cardinal Ottoboni at the Cancelleria.