This painting was recently published by the present author in the artist’s catalogue raisonné. As I had the opportunity to clarify on that occasion, the subject is not the German collects or and patron Otto Messinger, of whom Mancini produced two well-known portraits: one seated, now at the Museo del Prado, and the other standing, at the Galleria Nazionale d’ Arte Moderna in Rome. This mistaken identification had originally appeared in the catalogue of Mancini’s retrospective exhibition in the Gazzetta del Popolo in 1940, and was subsequently repeated in later bibliography.

In order to identify the sitter, research was directed toward the circle of people Mancini associated with in the capital between 1883—when he moved there from Naples—and 1885, the date of the painting. It was precisely in this period that, thanks to his friendship with Sargent, with the sculptor Waldo Story, and his brother Julian Story, the painter was introduced into the Anglo-American cultural milieu that moved between Rome and Venice. We know that, around 1883, Story introduced him to James Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell (London 1858 – 1941), a British politician, diplomat, and poet who was in Rome at the t.mes . Rodd would later establish himself permanently in the city in 1891 and, as ambassador, from 1908 to 1919. At the current stage of research, we can recognize in this work the youthful portrait of Rodd, which for a certain period also belonged to his friend Julian Story. A multifaceted figure with a lively life, Rennell Rodd in England was associated with the circle of Oscar Wilde and the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones.

The delicate features in this portrait, the thick hair, and the well-groomed moustache, are also present in a youthful photograph of the English baron, where he poses in three-quarter view looking downward, as well as in another later photograph where, despite his older age, the vivid gaze recalls that of the painting. Similar too is the oval shape of the face, which runs from the cheekbones down to the slightly protruding chin in a narrow and gentle line (FIGS. 1–2).

The painting, executed in 1885, dates one year later than the Portrait of Daniel Sargent Curtis, painted in Rome in February 1884. Many similarities unite the two works: the studied pose of the sitter, the elegant attire, and the neutral background that sets off the face in full light.

Together with the latter, this painting should therefore be counted among the very first portraits Mancini produced for Anglo-American patrons, long before his first stay in London between 1901 and 1902.

This catalogue entry was written by Cinzia Virno who will be including this work in the forthcoming supplement to the painter’s catalogue raisonné currently in preparation.