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Johann Baptist Lampi the Elder was one of the most famous and popular portraitists of his time. His clients included personalities from the imperial family, including Franz I and Josef II, as well as the nobility and the upper middle classes.
The finely painted facial expression appears alert, with an implied smile on the lips. The sitter's accentuated gaze is directed confidently from the painting, directly towards the viewer. The painting has clear compositional and stylistic similarities with Lampi's portraitures in the years around 1790-1800. In his expert certificate, Dr. Pancheri refers in particular to the portraits by the miniature painter Nicolas Soret (Geneva, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire), Count Franz von Saurau or Baron Johann Baptist von Puthon.
The identification of the sitter as Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749-1838) was first suggested in 2004. The catalogue for the Albertina exhibition in 2006 also follows this cautious allocation and points out that this would be Da Ponte's only surviving portrait from his Viennese period (cf. cat. Albertina 2006, p. 282). Dr. Roberto Pancheri finds this plausible, especially since the librettist, who was appointed "Poeta dei Teatri imperiali" by Joseph II, spent most of his time in the imperial city from 1781/82 to 1791 and Lampi was also active in Vienna at this time. In 1783, Da Ponte met Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and in the years that followed they were to achieve great fame with their joint operas Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. Lampi, meanwhile, was commissioned to paint several portraits of the emperor and was finally appointed professor at the Vienna Academy of Art in 1786. With increasing prestige and prosperity, it is only natural that the Venetian poet and the painter from Trentino should become acquainted in the capital.