An accomplished restorer and connoisseur of Old Master paintings, Giuseppe Molteni was, alongside Francesco Hayez, the leading portraitist in Milan during the late 1820s and early 1830s. The Portrait of Marchese Antonio Visconti Aimi, first published in 2015, is exemplary of his approach to the genre, presenting elegantly posed and attired sitters amidst sumptuous furnishings.



Antonio Visconti Aimi (1798–1854) was a Milanese aristocrat and a distinguished collector. Contemporary descriptions of his holdings note that he owned Old Master and modern paintings, antiquities, Chinese, and Japanese vases, arms and armour and fine furniture including at least one piece by Boulle. In Molteni’s painting, he seated in a beautifully appointed room, in which a number of large Chinese urns and basins are prominently displayed, one of which serves as a rather extravagant fishbowl.



Fashions in the Romantic era were characterised by the hourglass silhouette, found in both men’s and women’s clothing. Men’s frock coats sprouted wide collars, padded shoulders and puffed sleeves, and waists were sometimes cinched and narrowed with a male version of the corset to this achieve the desired silhouette. The sitter here wears a brown frock coat with a black velvet collar and a slight puff to the sleeves, and a black cravat which prefigures the later development of the bowtie. His trousers were likely fitted with stirrups to maintain a long, lean line; by this time, full-length trousers were worn by men on all but the most formal occasions, when old-fashioned breeches and low-heeled pumps made anachronistic appearances. Although the sitter is indoors, he carries a riding crop and wears kid gloves, a fashionable accessory. His hair is curled, with long sideburns; after more than a century of clean-shaven faces, young men of the Romantic era discovered a new form of self-expression though coiffure. Indeed, as suiting became increasingly sober, men embraced more inventive hairstyles, flamboyant facial hair, and richly coloured and patterned waistcoats to lend distinction and flair to their appearance. The sitter’s crisp white shirt, eye-catching waistcoat, meticulously knotted cravat, watch fob, gloves, and riding crop all demonstrate a scrupulous attention to detailed accessories which can be found in menswear still today.