Portrait of Bartolomeo Arese

Count Bartolomeo Arese (1590-1674) is one of the most influential personalities of seventeenth-century Milan: ordinary magistrate, captain of justice, president of the Senate; in the same year in which this painting is executed, he transforms the country residence of the family in Cesano Maderno into a sumptuous palace. The portrait is entrusted to Giacinto Santagostino, who belongs to a family of Como painters originally from Mandello sul Lario (he is in fact brother of Agostino and son of Giacomo Antonio). Giacinto had already known Count Arese on the occasion of the decoration of the Sala dei Senatori at Castello Sforzesco. He creates an unusual portrait posture, with a daring twist of the neck in respect of the bust and the gaze "on the bias", but is rather academic on the stylistic level, in which recalls the portrait of Giovanni Pietro Carcano, which he painted twenty years before.