Francesco Hayez
(1791 - 1882)

Francesco Hayez was an Italian painter. He is considered one of the leading artists of Romanticism in mid-19th-century Milan, and is renowned for his grand historical paintings, political allegories, and portraits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Hayez

Portrait of Countess Antonietta Negroni Prati Morosini as a Child
1858
Oil on canvas
133.5 cm × 110 cm
Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milan

Hayez decided to use some photographs of the countess for this portrait, to avoid long poses. Despite the reassuring closeness of the little girl's mother in the photos used by the artist, the expression of the little countess revealed a sense of discomfort and bewilderment that Hayez decided to preserve in his portrait. Thus he gave to the painting an unconventional realistic freshness compared with the conventional canons of his time for child portraiture. The child is holding several flowers and one of them lies in the floor. Behind her there is a vase with a large amount of flowers, which was not very appreciated by the critics back then.