Count of Angers Room

This little room takes its name from the painting that dominates the ceiling, The Recognition of Gaultier, Count of Angers, executed in 1787 by Giuseppe Cades (1750-1799). The subject is drawn from the eighth novella of the second day of Boccaccio’s Decameron.. The story lent itself to depicting the themes of honour, loyalty, and nostalgia for one’s homeland, represented by the artist with precocious pre-Romantic sensibility and a style that distinguishes itself from the late-eighteenth-century taste common to the other painters active in the villa as part of the team headed by Antonio Asprucci (1723-1808).. The ovals, the dancing figures , and the monochrome festoon around the large painting were executed by the Polish painter Tadeusz Kuntze (1733-1793).
On display in the room are paintings from the seventeenth century, many of which are Flemish and Dutch ones acquired in 1783 by Asprucci on behalf of Marcantonio IV Borghese (1730-1800). There is also a pair of nineteenth-century paintings by Gaspare Landi (1690-1743): his Self-portrait and the Portrait of Antonio Canova.
Noteworthy among the works of the eighteenth century is the Madonna with Child by Pompeo Batoni (1708-1787), formerly attributed to Carlo Maratta, which was acquired by the Italian government in 1909.