Bildnis der kleinen Gräfin Antonietta Negroni Prati Morosini als Kind

By 1858 the photograph was still a novelty in Milan, and Francesco Hayez leaned on one here. Rather than make this small countess sit still for hours, he worked from photographs taken of her, her mother kept close by to steady her. You can see what he chose not to smooth away. Instead of the sweet, composed child that commissioned portraits usually delivered, her face holds a flicker of unease, the bewilderment of a young girl told to hold still. Her father, Alessandro Negroni Prati Morosini, had ordered the picture. It reached Milan's civic collections in 1935, and years later the Italian post office put this same wary little face on a stamp.