CRESPI, LUIGI

PORTRAIT OF YOUNG GIRL WITH FLOWER BASKET

In the past this portrait was attributed to the French school, while in the Vishnevskii collection it was thought to be the work of an unknown master. V.E. Markova proposed that it be attributed to Luigi Crespi, son and biographer of Giuseppe Maria Crespi. It was probably painted no earlier than the 1750s when Luigi Crespi returned from a long journey to Venice, Vienna and Dresden, which enriched his experience of Europe.

Provenance: held in the Velichko collection (Moscow); in the late 1950s or early 1960s it became part of F.E. Vishnevskii's collection (Moscow) and later that of his heirs; acquired by the Pushkin Museum from a private collection in Moscow in 2002.