Self-portrait

Antonio Balestra came from a well-off family of merchants in Verona, and he was first set to literary studies. He took his first lessons in painting only at 17, from Giovanni Zeffis, a modest local painter. Here he paints himself young, his face framed by a wig, and the museum reads that youthful look as the sign that this is one of his very early works. It dates the canvas only broadly, somewhere between 1690 and 1710.

The museum also points out how well the oval format suits the turn of the sitter's pose and the lines of the face inside the wig. Where the picture was before it reached the museum is not known.