Giuseppe Cesare, called Cavaliere d'Arpino, a bust-length portrait in a twelve-sided frame

Ottavio Leoni (Il Padovano)

1621 · Etching and engraving · Drawings and Prints

Late in life, from around 1621 until 1630, Leoni made forty striking portraits of famous men, including this depiction of the Roman artist Cavaliere d’Arpino (1568–1640). The frames around Leoni’s portraits indicate the occupation of the sitter: popes and cardinals have a square format, writers have oval frames, and artists have dodecagonal ones. It is possible that despite their similarities, Leoni’s portrait prints were not intended as a series as such, but simply reflect the fact that he kept working within a preferred visual format over a long period of time.

Artist

Ottavio Leoni (Il Padovano)

Date

1621

Medium

Etching and engraving

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Bequest of Phyllis Massar, 2011