Abbess Lucrezia Agliardi Vertova (1490?–1558)

Giovanni Battista Moroni executed this portrait in 1557, the year preceding the death of the sitter, Abbess Lucrezia Agliardi Vertova. The work was likely commissioned by the Abbess herself, given the artist's residence adjacent to her monastery of Sant'Anna in Albino. Originally housed in the monastery church, the painting was sold in 1799 to Don Giovanni Battista Noli for 300 lire.

It subsequently passed by inheritance to Elena Noli Baglioni and her son Ercole Baglioni by 1860. Ercole sold the canvas to the Bergamo collector Dionigi Zanchi, who resold it in 1893 through Francesco Monetti to the American collector Theodore M. Davis for 5,000 francs. Davis later donated the work to his collection's museum, from which it entered the holdings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The painting is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Its provenance is documented through several notarial acts, beginning with its presence in the church of Sant'Anna in Albino between 1740 and 1750. Sold in 1799 to Giovanni Battista Noli, the work passed by inheritance to Elena Noli Baglioni and subsequently to her son Ercole Baglioni in 1860.

Ercole sold the portrait to Dionigi Zanchi of Bergamo, who resold it in 1893 via Francesco Monetti to the American collector Theodore M. Davis for 5,000 francs. Davis later donated the piece to the museum associated with his collection. While the original resides in New York, a copy is preserved by the Agliardi family in Bergamo.

The portrait of Abbess Lucrezia Agliardi Vertova is situated within the early career of Giovanni Battista Moroni, painted in 1557, the year before the sitter's death, while the artist was based again at Albino, where the monastery of Sant'Anna founded by Lucrezia Agliardi stood adjacent to his own family home. Italian-language scholarship frames the work as one of Moroni's finest early portraits, emphasizing the unflinching realism with which he rendered the elderly abbess in her black Carmelite habit, with a prayer book in her hands and a distant, reflective gaze. The painting is described as a deeply humane likeness whose emotional intensity derives from its fidelity to observed reality, from the grey background to the flesh tones shifting between yellow and red.

The work's documented provenance, traced through the church of Sant'Anna in Albino, the Baglioni heirs, and the dealer Francesco Monetti, led to its acquisition in 1893 by the American collector Theodore M. Davis, who donated it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it remains today alongside a copy retained by the Agliardi family in Bergamo.

This painting, created by Giovanni Battista Moroni in 1557, portrays Abbess Lucrezia Agliardi Vertova. Executed in oil paint, the work captures the likeness of a significant religious figure from the 16th century. It currently resides in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, offering a glimpse into the portraiture practices of the Italian Renaissance.