Giuseppe Molteni was primarily a portraitist and painter of historical scenes. His studio, a renowned destination at the time, was frequented by numerous artists. Among his most famous portraits are that of Alessandro Manzoni and the opera soprano Giuditta Pasta.

 

He enrolled at the Brera Academy in 1815, following the drawing courses of Giuseppe Longhi (1766-1831). He was unable to attend the Academy for long due to economic problems. However, he decided to move towards a job which had to do with art but could still guarantee him a secure income. He hence moved to Bologna to attend the school of Giuseppe Guizzardi (1779-1861) and to learn the art of picture restoration. He accompanied his activity as a restorer with that of a painter, and soon became a portraitist courted by the Milanese bourgeoisie and aristocracy.

In 1837 he visited the court of Vienna to paint the portrait of Ferdinand I of Habsburg-Lorraine. There, he was able to appreciate Biedermeier painting and to make friends with the painter Friedrich von Amerling. This determined his shift towards genre painting, dedicated to popular scenes of contemporary life, which garnered immediate acclaim from the public and critics alike.

Giuseppe Molteni dedicated himself to painting, in 1828 inaugurating the genre of the so-called "set portrait", characterized by meticulous and sumptuous renderings of the surroundings and costumes, which brought him extraordinary success and placed him in direct rivalry with Francesco Hayez. Both artists became protagonists of the change to this genre so widespread in the 19^th century. They both abandoned the classicism of the portraits of Andrea Appiani (1754-1817) and moved towards a less celebratory and more interpretative rendering of the sitter’s character.

 

While Hayez focused mainly on emotion and on what might be called a realistic “poetic of affections”, Giuseppe Molteni instead tended to bring out the environment in which the figure lived and was therefore identified with Rooms full of objects of all kinds drapes and precious and refined fabrics in openly bourgeois interiors. The painting presented here Ritratto di Gentildonna, is a clear example of this.

 

Molteni had a great ability to vary costume painting as he wished. At the same time in works such as La povera mendicante (The Poor Beggar) or Spazzacamino (The Chimney Sweep), in which humble characters and poverty are portrayed, the artist also created paintings in which the sitters were rich bourgeois women and wealthy businessmen. In fact, his was never a painting of social denunciation, but a painting which "recounted" all the different social classes, describing their characteristics and enhancing their individual character, whatever they might be (in society).

In 1854, he was appointed curator of the Pinacoteca dell’Accademia di Brera. Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli also entrusted him with the restoration of several works from his collection and chose him as a consultant for the purchase of ancient paintings. He continued to combine the profession of restorer with that of portrait and genre painter until his death in 1867.