A 17th-century painting stored in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna since 1989 has been attributed to Italian Baroque master Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The artwork, titled Portrait of an Old Man and dated to around 1670, will be presented as a newly identified painting by the artist.
Exhibition curator Gudrun Swoboda re-evaluated the canvas after examining technical details of the subject's face and mouth. The discovery is particularly significant because Bernini is remembered primarily as a sculptor and architect, with fewer than 20 of his hundreds of paintings surviving today with secure attribution.
Changing attributions over a century
The portrait entered the collections of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in 1920 as a donation from a local Viennese collector who had purchased it approximately 20 years earlier. The museum, located in Austria's capital, holds extensive fine art collections spanning antiquity through the Habsburg monarchy.
At the time of its acquisition, art historians considered the piece to be a work by Philippe de Champaigne, a prominent 17th-century French Baroque painter known for his formal portraits. Over subsequent decades, scholars questioned that attribution, and the painting passed through various catalog designations before experts declared it the work of an anonymous artist.
In 1989, museum staff transferred the painting to the institution's storage depots. The portrait remained in storage for more than three decades without public display.
Sculptural evidence in the painting
The investigation gained momentum when Swoboda examined the specific rendering of the old man's features. Swoboda told The Art Newspaper that the portrait appeared constructed and modeled in a manner similar to how a sculptor would shape a face in clay.
Swoboda highlighted the treatment of the subject's mustache, describing its appearance as distinctly sculptural. The curator also identified clear visual similarities between the corners of the old man's lips and those depicted on Bernini's marble Bust of Louis XIV.
Further evidence emerged from comparative analysis with a drawn self-portrait by Bernini preserved in the Royal Collection Trust, which oversees the British Royal Collection. Swoboda observed matching qualities in the direction of the light source and the orientation of the subject's gaze, leading her to formally attribute the painting to Bernini.
Bernini's artistic legacy and exhibition
Gian Lorenzo Bernini was a central figure of the Italian Baroque era, leaving an extensive artistic legacy across Rome during the 17th century. He served as official architect of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, designing major structural and decorative works including the grand colonnade surrounding St. Peter's Square.
Among his most famous sculptures are David, preserved in the Borghese Gallery in Rome, and The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, located in the Roman church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. His marble statue of Saint Longinus stands in a niche within St. Peter's Basilica.
While Bernini produced hundreds of painted works during his lifetime, his pictorial output has received far less scholarly focus than his marble sculptures and buildings. The re-attributed Portrait of an Old Man provides a rare opportunity to examine his techniques on canvas.
The painting will take center stage alongside ten international loans in the upcoming exhibition Bernini: Painter and Sculptor. The exhibition opens on December 2 at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and will remain on display through April 2027.
