Portrait of Cardinal Zelada

1773

Anton Raphael Mengs (German, 1728–1779)

Anton Raphael Mengs worked for princely clients in Dresden, Madrid, Naples, and Rome, and was an early promoter of the Neoclassical style in art and writing. Francesco Saverio Zelada, depicted here, was an enthusiast of the arts and sciences who eventually rose to the position of Secretary of State for the Vatican. This work was probably commissioned when Zelada was made a cardinal in 1773. The sitter proudly holds a biretta, the scarlet cap traditionally worn by cardinals. Meng’s masterful use of color and texture to enhance the status of his sitters is on full display here through the evocation of silk, lace, fur, and ruddy ﬂesh.

Status: On View, Gallery 217
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Anton Raffael Mengs
Title: Portrait of Cardinal Zelada
Place: Germany (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1773
Medium: Oil on panel
Dimensions: 90 × 66 cm (35 7/16 × 26 in.)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by Silvain and Arma Wyler Foundation
Reference Number: 1969.2
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/30899/manifest.json

Supplemento alla serie dei trecento elogi e ritratti degli uomini I piu’ illustri in pittura, scultura e architettura… (Florence, 1776), col. 107.
Carlo Giuseppi Ratti, Epilogo della vita del fu Cavaliere Antonio Raffaello Ments… (Genoa, 1779), p. VIII; edition of 1795 (Pavia, 1795), pp. IX, 89-90.
Diario Ordinario, Rome, no. 554 (22 April, 1780), pp. 8-9.
[Giovanni Lodovico Bianconi], Elogio Storico del Cavaliere Anton Raffaele Mengs (Milan, 1780), p. [6].
[Doray de Longrais], Oeuvres de M. Mengs, Premier Peintre du Roi d’Espagne & du Roi de Pologne, Professeur de l’Académie Capitoline à Rome, etc. (Regensburg, 1782), p. 25.
C.F. Prang, Des Ritters Anton Raphael Mengs, ersten Mahlers Karl III. Königs in Spanien hinterlaßne Werke, vol. 1 (Halle, 1786), pp. 54, 110.
D. José Nicolás de Azara, Opere di Antonio Raffaello Mengs, primo pittore del Re Cattolico Carlo III, ed. by Carlo Fea (Rome, 1787), pp. XXIV, LXVII.
D. Juan Andres, Cartas familiares del Abate D. Juan Andres a su hermano D. Carlos Andres dandole noticia del viage que hizo á varias ciudades de Italia en el año 1785, vol. 1 (Madrid, 1791), p. 187.
G. K. Nagler, “Mengs, Anton Rafael” in Neues allgemeines Künstler-Lexicon, vol. 9 (Munich, 1840), p. 106.
Federico Fantozzi, Nuova guida ovvero descrizione storico-artistico-critica della cittá e contorni di Firenze (Florence, 1843), p. 724.
G. Schilling, Anton Raphael Mengs’ sämmtliche hinterlassene Schriften, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1843), p. 27, no. 3; vol. 2 (Bonn, 1844), p. 202
Catalogue dei quadri ed altri oggetti della Galleria Rinuccini per comodo dei signori che favoriscono visitaria (Florence, 1845), p. 17, no. 16.
Giacinto Cantalamessa Carboni, Ricerche sulla vita del Commendatore Annibal Caro e considerazioni intorno le sue opere (Ascoli, 1858), p. 324.
Società e corte di Firenze sotto il regno di Francesco II e Leopoldo I di Lorena-Absburgo (Florence, 1877), p. 183.
Karl Woermann, “Ismael und Anton Raphael Mengs,” Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, N.F. 5 (1894), p. 288.
Dieter Honisch, Anton Raphael Mengs und die Bildform des Frühklassizismus (Recklinghausen, 1965), p. 126, no. 266.
Anton Haidacher, Geschichte der Päpste in Bildern, mit einem geschichtlichen Überblick von Josef Wodka. Eine Dokumentation zur Papstgeschichte von Ludwig, Freiherr von Pastor (Zurich, 1965), p. 713, ill.
Ruth Davidson, “Museum Accessions,” Antiques 96 (1969), p. 670 (ill.).
“Recent Accessions” Apollo 90, 89 (1969), p. 78, fig. 6.
J[oseph] J. R[ishel], Calendar of The Art Institute of Chicago 63 (Summer 1969), n. p., ill. on cover.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Report 1968-1969 (Chicago, 1969), pp. 16, 17.
“La Chronique des arts,” supplement to the Gazette des Beaux-Arts series, no 1203 (April, 1969), p. 5.
“La Chronique des arts,” supplement to the Gazette des Beaux-Arts series 6, 75 (1970), p. 73, fig. 36.
Steffi Röttgen, “Two Portraits by Mengs in The Art Institute of Chicago,” Museum Studies 5 (1970), pp. 65-72, fig. 1.
John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (New York, 1970), pp. 64 (ill.), 284.
Herbert von Einem, Anton Raphael Mengs: Briefe an Raimondo Ghelli und Anton Maron (Göttingen, 1973), pp. 68-69, 103 n. 1.
Susan Wise, “European Portraits 1600–1900,” Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago 72, 4 (1978), pp.16–17 (ill.).
Carlo Pietrangeli, “L’Appartamento del Cardinal Zelada in Vaticano,” Bollettino dei Musei e Gallerie Pontificie 6 (1986), p. 160, fig. 6.
Steffi Roettgen, Anton Raphael Mengs 1728-1779, vol. 1 (Munich, 1999), pp. 309-310, no. 240, ill.
Ornella Francisci Osti, “Key Figures in Eighteenth-Century Rome,” in Edgar Peters Bowron and Joseph J. Rishel, eds., Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2000, p. 103.

Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Il Settecento a Roma, March 19 - May 31, 1959, cat. 1451.
Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, European Portraits 1600-1900 in The Art Institute of Chicago, July 8 - September 11, 1978, cat. 11 (ill.).
Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, The Art of the Edge: European Frames 1300-1900, October 17 - December 14, 1986, cat. 25.

Cardinal Francesco Saverio de Zelada (died 1801), Rome, until 1801. Probably Marchese Pierfrancesco Rinuccini (died circa 1852), Florence, by 1845 [see Rinuccini catalogue, 1845, p. 17, no. 16]. Antonio Baccelli, Rome, 1959 [lent to Rome 1959]. Marcello and Carlo Sestieri, Rome, 1959; sold to the Art Institute, 1969.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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