LOMBARD PAINTER OF THE 18TH CENTURY Portrait of a Jurist Oil on canvas, 89.5X71 cm Attributed in the collection to Giacomo Ceruti (Milan, 1698 ; 1767), the portrait under examination is highly appreciable for the effigy's expressive force, also characterised by a surprisingly realistic tenor. Thanks to these clues, the reference to Pitocchetto becomes comprehensible, but in our case we find a greater realistic focus, a naturalism without mediation and even less conditioned by aesthetic demands. The author, in fact, describes man without courtly or literary filters, conceiving the image in the guise of a photographic snapshot supported by an excellent pictorial quality. Our attention is caught by the severe and attentive gaze, as well as the drawing construction of the hand in the foreground, details that reaffirm the Lombard and Milanese genesis, suggesting knowledge of Magnasco's crude portraiture, the innovations of Ceruti and Fra Galgario, achieving a modernity that heralds post-romantic portraiture.