original text : (Automatic translation)
Angelica Kauffman, R.A. (1740 - 1807) Swiss-Austrian. A Portrait of the Duca di Chiesi, son of Livio Erba-Odascalchi, Duca di Bracciano and Vittoria Corsini, Half-Length, seated, wearing a red Velvet and Fur trimmed Jacket and Lace Collar. Oil on Canvas. From a noble Roman family, the sitter was a descendent of Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duca di Bracciano (1537-1585) a hero of the Battle of Lepanto who had married Isabella de Medici, daughter of Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Further reinforcing the royal connections his sister Donna Maria Ottavia Odescalchi (1757-1829) had married Prince Guisepe Maria Rospigliosi in 1775.

The sitter is recorded sitting to Kauffman in December 1784 and the portrait cost 24 Zecchini. Kauffman had recently returned to Italy in 1782 having spent the last sixteen years in England and settled with her new husband Antonio Zucchi in Rome. Clearly already established within Rome society Kauffman's sitter's records illustrate that she was busy fulfilling portrait commissions not only for noble residents and foreign visitors to Rome but also for the Royal Family of Naples and of the Two Sicilies (Vaduz, Liechtenstein Collection.)

This elegant portrait is painted with delicate attention to detail, and on closer inspection the fur which lines the collar of the sitter's coat is almost tangible. It is comparable in style and composition to the portraits of Wolfgang Goethe, c. 1787 (Goethe-National Museum, Weimer) and Johan Gottfried Herder, 1789 (Bregrenz, Vorarlberger Landesmuseum).