Portrait of Cardinal Agucchi

Girolamo Agucchi had been a cardinal for only a matter of months when this was painted. Rome created him in June of 1604, and he was dead by the following April, so the red he wears here marks a rank he barely had time to hold. Domenichino was in his early twenties and living in the Agucchi household when he made it, a young painter under the roof of the family he was portraying. He gives the cardinal a plain, watchful presence rather than the grand show a prince of the church might expect, the face turned slightly, the hands quiet. It is one of the earliest portraits we have from him, made while he was still finding his footing in Rome among far more established names.