Portrait of Monsignor Clemente Merlini

The gilded finial on the back of the chair tells you who this is. It is an eagle standing on a tower, the heraldic badge of Clemente Merlini, a churchman from Forlì who sat as a judge of the Rota, the papal court of appeal in Rome. Sacchi painted him around 1630 or 1631, when Pope Urban VIII and the Barberini family, the painter's chief patrons, ruled the city. There is little of the usual display. The sitter is in a dim study with a few books on a shelf, one hand on an open volume. Sacchi held firm views on portraits, with light falling from above, cloth folding naturally and character put first, and this canvas follows them. Merlini died in 1642, and by 1644 the painting belonged to Cardinal Antonio Barberini. It is now kept in the gallery's storerooms, though it has travelled to exhibitions as far as Los Angeles and Kyoto.