Bernini – A Painted Portrait Revealed

Discover how an anonymous masterpiece was unmasked as a rare painting by Baroque genius Bernini

Long listed among the anonymous works of the Kunsthistorisches Museum’s Picture Gallery, the Portrait of an Old Manlanguished in storage for decades. To the attentive viewer, however, its quality was evident. Now, after careful conservation treatment, it reveals itself as an extraordinary painting. The sitter turns towards us, meeting our gaze directly, his lips parted as if about to speak. The portrait’s remarkable vivacity is heightened by his tousled hair and billowy clothing, details that pointed towards an attribution to Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680). This hypothesis has been confirmed by stylistic analysis and technological examination.

Bernini, architect of St Peter’s Square and sculptor of Apollo and Daphne, is considered one of the founding figures of Baroque art. His work as a painter, however, is less well known, and it is presumed that he painted primarily for his own amusement, with fewer than twenty paintings being attributed to his hand today.

This publication traces a fascinating trail of clues, revealing how Bernini rendered the painted face in three dimensions, sculpting with his brush just as he shaped terracotta or carved marble. It offers new perspectives on the most important artist of seventeenth-century Italy – and on a work of art that blurs the boundaries between painting and sculpture in such a striking way.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Bernini – Painter and Sculptor, organised by the Kunsthistorisches Museum, on view from 2 December 2026 to 4 April 2027 at Palais Lobkowitz in Vienna.