Saint Loyola Painting by Unknown Artist

This painting depicts Ignatius of Loyola. ( 1491 - 1556 )

Saint Ignatius of Loyola, was a Spanish Catholic priest and theologian, who, with six companions, founded the religious order of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), and became its first Superior General, in Paris in 1541.

You have many universities that use his name, especially in the US.

We don't know the artist of this painting, but a similar print exists in the National Portrait Gallery of London.

That print is done by Marco Alvise Pitteri
and is a line engraving, mid-18th century.

We have not found any other painting with the same face, expression, and clothes as depicted in the print.

In other words the print in London most likely was done on basis of our painting here.

Giovanni Marco Pitteri (1703–1767) was an Italian engraver of the late Baroque period in his native Venice. He engraved densely incised portraits with shading of almost photographic quality.
He is said to have trained under Giovanni Antonio Faldoni, and to have engraved in the style of Mellan.

He engraved a drawing of Saint Philip by Piazzetta, in whose studio he worked.

He had as one of his pupils Giovanni Domenico Lorenzi.

Naturally that brings us closer to who the artist might be.

He often copied the following painters, so we could expect our painting here to be done by one of them:

Federico Bencovich (1667 – 8 July 1753)

Jusepe de Ribera (1591 – 1652)

Giovanni Antonio Faldoni (24 April 1689 – c. 1770)

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (February 13, 1682 or 1683 – April 28, 1754)

Maybe the last one is the most likely, as they worked together in the same altelier in Venice.

We are still investigating the painting.