In a 1673 listing he made of foreign merchants then living in the thriving Spanish port of Cadiz, the Piedmontese businessman Raimundo de Lantery mentioned a number of his fellow Italians, including a certain Giovanni Battista Priaroggia, a prominent member of the Genoese contingent then active in the city.  Lantery considered Priaroggia a friend, and a man of good repute.¹  By the time the present portrait was painted, Priaroggia was well established and had lived in Cadiz for a number of years.  He is mentioned in a document of 1680 as a creditor to the heirs of Carlo Pesenti, a fellow Genoese who had naturalized and become the Marques de Montecorte.² 

It is not surprising that such a large colony of Italians had established themselves in Cadiz in the mid 17^th Century.  The port had become one of the busiest in Europe and was situated near Seville, the main entry point for ships coming from the Spanish Americas.  This is perhaps particularly true of the Genoese, who had strong business and banking ties with Spain.  They even appear to have taken an active interest in the arts there; Giovanni Bielato, also mentioned in Lantery’s list of Cadiz expatriates, is recorded as having some seven canvases by Murillo which he took back to Genoa.³   

In this elegant portrait, Priaroggia is depicted as the wealthy, international merchant that he was, seated in his study, his arm resting on his draped desk.  He is wearing the suit with the full, flounced sleeves popular in the 1670’s, the dress of the Spanish elite (a status confirmed by the sword that he wears at his side); behind him to the left is a beautiful inlaid vargueno surmounted by a bronze sculpture of an eagle, to the right a garden.  Stylistically the picture is clearly reminiscent of the work of Murillo, to whom the picture had in the past been attributed.   It is similar in tenor to a painting of 1665 of Don Justino de Neve (Bowood House, see D. Angulo Iñiguez, Murillo, Madrid 1981, vol. III, fig. 459) who is shown seated in his study, as well as other portraits which show the similar elements (see for example the Portrait of Don Andrés de Andrade in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York which sh🙈ows a garden and a balustrade surmounted by a large sphere).&nbs🐭p; The artist who painted this portrait must have been intimately familiar with Murillo’s portrait style and may even have been a close associate.  The name of the Flemish artist Cornelis Schut the Younger has been proposed as a possible candidate; Schut was a prominent artist in nearby Seville at the time the present painting would have been painted, circa 1680.

1  Memorias de Raimundo de Lantery, 🍌1673-1700, A. Picardo y Gomez, ed., Madrid, 1949, p. 9🎀.

2  L. Giuliano Panizza, L'Azienda Durazzo a Candice, th𒅌esis, Università Degli Studi di Genova, 2002/3, p. 153.

3 C. Langasco, "Sette Murillo dispersi," Liguria, VII, 1938, pp. 11-17.  Three 🗹of these pictuꦿres are currently in the collection of the Wallace Collection, London.