ELISABETTA SIRANI

(Bologna 1638 – 1665 Bologna)

Portrait of Anna Maria Ranuzzi as Charity

Oil on canvas

35 3/8 x 30 ½ inches
(90.5 x 77.5 cm)

Signed and dated on the sleeve : ELISA.TTA SIRANI. F. 1665

Provenance:   

Durst Family, (Budapest until 1919; then Vienna); thence by descent to:

Robert and Paula Zalaudek Durst, (Vienna, until 1936; then New York (until 1985); by descent to her niece:

Gertrude Hounsell, New York (1985-2016)

The present painting is an autograph second version of Elisabetta Sirani’s last painting, now in the collection of the Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna.  It portrays Anna Maria Ranuzzi, the sister of Sirani’s patron Count Marsigli, with two of her children, along with a third baby (not a portrait), in the allegorical role of Charity.  This previously unknown version presumably was painted for the sitter herself, while the Bolognese painting –signed identically to the present painting—descended in the Marsigli family.