Portrait of a Greyhound with Pup

1660 · Private collection

portrait

Although Pace del Campidoglio is mainly known as a painter of still-life, he also painted for his patron, Cardinal Flavio Chigi (1641-1693), numerous paintings of greyhounds for his residences in and around Rome. The present picture, depicting a greyhound with pup peering at him timidly out of its niche-like space in the lower right corner, belongs to this group of paintings. The brown greyhound is depicted before a twilit landscape.

About the Artist

Michele Pace Del Campidoglio

1610 – 1670

Italian painter, also known as Michelangelo di Campidoglio. The only certain information on him relates to paintings for Cardinal Flavio Chigi, documented from 1658 to 1660, and to his presence at meetings of the Accademia di S Luca in 1667 and 1668. He was one of the primary painters in Rome of his generation, as is attested in written sources, public documents, and inventory entries; however, few surviving paintings have been securely attributed to him. He was known for still-lifes and animal paintings. In these paintings the compositions of fruit with their rich use of coloured impasto are displayed against landscape backgrounds in a style that owes much to Michelangelo Cerquozzi and to Abraham Brueghel. In his animal painting the influence of Jan Fyt can be detected. Pace del Campidoglio's son Giovan Battista Pace (b. ca. 1640-45) was a minor painter of religious subjects.

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