“Fair and moderate”, just as his mother’s – Empress Maria Theresa – was also considered the government of Joseph II, portrayed in his study, with a bookshelf on the background and, next to him, a table on which writing tools lie; this deportment, recurring in many portrays of nobles and prelates, evidently aimed at alluding to culture as a deep root of power. Behind him, it is possible to identify essays on political economy and a copy of the Statutes of Casalmaggiore, highlighting the connection of the portrait to the area as well as investing the image of political meaning, an implicit recognition of the autonomous tradition that the city had favored by from the XVI century.
On loan from che Fondazione Conte Busi onlus - Casalmaggiore
