Pietro Ligari (1686-1752), Attr. - Autoritratto

Pietro Ligari, (Ardenno,1686- Sondrio, 1752) , attr
Self-portrait
Oil on panel, 10 x 8 cm

The present painting, dating back to the beginning of the eighteenth century, portrays a young man holding a book and a compass, connoting his profession as an architect or mathematician. The bright red headdress frames a characteristic determined and slightly frowning look, rendered with marked naturalism and attention to reality.
The color of the headdress is echoed in the scarf and the cover of the book, thus creating contrast with the darker tones of the dress and background, also allowing the three-dimensionality of the volumes to be accentuated. Observing the portrait, one notices a certain resemblance to the features of Pietro Ligari, known thanks to the Self-portrait now in the Museum of History and Art of Sondrio, whose execution fell around 1720 during the artist's stay in Milan, consequently offering us a chronological clue to date the portrait in question. Furthermore, Pietro Ligari was not only a painter but also an architect which justifies the presence of attributes typical of this job. The hypothesis that the author is Pietro Ligari is supported by the comparison with the Portrait of his daughter Vittoria, in which, in addition to the same typology of the face, the drafting finds influences from Lombard and Venetian painting.
Pietro Ligari was born in the province of Sondrio to a family of bourgeois origins, the Del Pelos. It took the name of Ligari referring to a district in the Province of Sondrio. Pietro's parents, recognizing in their son a certain talent in the arts, sent him to Rome at the age of 12 where he learned the main painting and drawing techniques in Lazzaro Baldi's workshop. Subsequently, he traveled to Venice (1707 - 1709) which allowed him to assimilate the style of Piazzetta and then to Milan (1710 - 1727) , where he resided for a long time already as an independent artist. here he worked under the protection of Cardinal Angelo Maria Querini and had contact with the Valtellina painter Giacomo Parravicini, known as Gianolo, who introduced him to the city's artistic environment. In 1727 he returned permanently to Valtellina. Among the most representative works of his art we remember: The Baptism of the Indian Princess of 1717, for the Oratory of Palazzo Sertoli in Sondrio; a cycle of canvases and frescoes for the Palazzo Salis in Chur, for which he also oversaw the design of the Italian garden; two altarpieces, the decoration of the apse and the apse basin for the Collegiate Church of Morbegno. For the same collegiate church he also designed the reliquary of the Holy Thorn, some liturgical furnishings and executed a series of oval-shaped canvases. The church of San Giovanni Battista in Morbegno is considered the Liga temple par excellence, also due to the presence of some works by his son Cesere and daughter Vittoria. Between 1747 and 1750 he created the sketches, all at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan, for the canvas of the organ of the sanctuary of Tirano, never built, and for the altarpiece with St. Benedict of the convent of S. Lorenzo near Sondrio believed lost in following the suppression of the monastery and traced to the church of S. Giuseppe in Luino (Noè) . L. was also responsible for the design of the chapel and the altar on which the altarpiece should have been placed.
In addition to painting and architecture, Ligari also tried his hand at the "mechanical arts" by building and repairing mechanical devices, pendulum clocks, hydraulic systems for ornamental fountains and designed some organs, instruments that he himself knew how to play, such as the one for the sanctuary of Tirano, never built.
In the last months of his life he wrote the Ragionmenti d'agricoltura and the Simple news for the practice that is sought in agriculture, demonstrating great interest in the cultivation of the plants that surrounded his home. Pietro Ligari died at the age of 66, in 1752 and was buried at the Collegiate Church of Sondrio.

The frame is provided free of charge, therefore it cannot be a reason for return or complaint.

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