Pietro Bellotti, 'An Old Man holding a Pilgrim-Bottle', probably 1650s

An elderly man, his face weathered by age and his clothes ragged and patched, leans on a crutch. He looks down towards a globe or sphere, on which a scene of a country inn at dusk is painted. In his right hand he holds an earthenware pilgrim-bottle or flask – such a bottle could be attached to the waist of a traveller or pilgrim by cords (visible here hanging along the left side of the flask’s belly). These types of bottles were produced across Europe and in widespread use during the seventeenth century. The painting may have an allegorical meaning, perhaps alluding to the wisdom of the aged traveller who has seen the world.

This painting has been in Britain since the early nineteenth century. It once formed part of the distinguished collection of Sir Francis Cook at Doughty House in Richmond, where it was thought to be Spanish and attributed to Diego Velázquez. More recently it has been considered north Italian, its style being associated with the Lombard painters Giacomo Francesco Cipper and Giacomo Ceruti who both specialised in painting low-life scenes of beggars, street-sellers and vagabonds.

The picture has recently been attributed toPietro Bellotti (1625–1700), a painter of portraits and character heads who also acted as the superintendent of the Gonzaga family’s art collections and galleries in Mantua. The painting’s subdued colour range and confident handling of paint, combined with the figure’s expressiveness and portrayal of advanced old age, all find parallels in Bellotti’s works. Born in Brescia in northern Italy, Bellotti travelled extensively to Venice, Milan and Munich. His reputation extended as far as Spain, where several of his paintings ended up; members of the Spanish court in Venice and Milan commissioned works from him in the 1650s. The fact that our painting is thought to have come from Spain – a label on the back says it was owned by Louis-Pierre de Montbrun, a famous general who served in Napoleon’s army in Spain – would fit with the work having been made by Bellotti for a Spanish patron.