Etienne Parrocel detto Le Romain (Avignone 1696 - Roma 1775), Portrait of a gentleman in a dressing gown

Oil on canvas cm. 97,5x73. Framed The reverse of the original canvas bears an old brush inscription: “DIPINTO IN ROMA / DA STEFANO PARROCEL / 1751”.

This magnificent painting represents one of Étienne Parrocel’s most accomplished works in the field of portraiture, a genre he practiced less frequently than religious painting. Parrocel played a leading role in eighteenth-century painting, especially for ecclesiastical commissions in Rome and throughout the territories of the Papal State (notably Umbria and the Marche), although he still awaits full critical reassessment as well as a complete catalogue raisonné of his works. Having arrived in Rome in 1717 together with his uncle Pierre, also a painter and his first teacher, Étienne Parrocel remained in the city for the rest of his life, earning the nickname “le Romain”.
In the present work, the refined quality of the painting and the perfect balance of the composition best illustrate the artist’s classicising vein, while the carefully staged, informal elegance of the pose, as well as the compelling intensity of the gaze, evoke Pierre Subleyras and support the hypothesis, previously advanced, of a self-portrait. G. SESTIERI, Repertorio della pittura romana della fine del Seicento e del Settecento, Turin 1994, vol. III, no. 852; A. IMBELLONE, in Il Settecento a Roma, exhibition catalogue, Rome 2005–2006, Cinisello Balsamo 2005, no. 151, pp. 254–255. Il Settecento a Roma, Ed. by A. Lo Bianco e A. Negro, Rome, Palazzo Venezia, 10 November 2005 - 26 february 2006. W. Apolloni Gallery, Rome (until 1993); private collection, Rome.