Un grande quadro familiare - the family of merchant Antonio Ghidini, by Pietro Melchiorre Ferrari, circa 1769

 

Antonio Ghidini was a successful merchant trading in fabrics, and officially accredited to the Bourbon court of Parma. As the letters on the cabinet in the background attest, Ghidini also had strong ties to England, then one of the most important centers of cloth manufacture in Europe. Other documents mention the city of Manchester, as well as the Booth family, major producers of textiles during this period. Befitting the family of a prominent fabric merchant, the Ghidini family is stylishly dressed. The elegant dress of the wife is made from a pink and green foliate stripe called "Melandri" (?) which was produced in Lyon as well as in the Veneto, and in Spitalfields in London. 

The work has been dated circa 1769 due to the presence of the medallion held by the eldest child, an object which had been created to commemorate the marriage of Ferdinando di Borbone, King of Naples and Sicily, to Archduchess Maria Carolina, a daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, in the previous year.

This painting, displaying an informality of composition, with the subjects seeming to be caught in a moment of domestic intimacy, was an example of a relatively new trend in continental portraiture, influenced by the popularity of the British "conversation piece." Until recently, the painting was considered the work of Baldrighi, Ferrari's master; before that, it had been credited to the French court painter Louis Michel van Loo. But the portrait was re-attributed to Ferrari thanks to the discovery of a list of artworks in the possession of the Ghidini family: "Un quadro grande che rappresenta I ritratti della famiglia Ghidini di Pietro Ferrari (A large painting representing the portraits of the Ghidini family by Pietro Ferrari.)” 

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Pietro Melchiorre Ferrari (2 February 1735, Sissa - 3 October 1787, Parma), Italian painter, active mainly in Parma. His father, Paolo Ferrari, was a painter in the ducal court of Parma. The younger Ferrari studied under Giuseppe Peroni, and later in the Academy of Fine Arts at Parma under Giuseppe Baldrighi.