Gregory XVI, Pope (1765-1846)

Delaroche's portrait of Pope Gregory XVI from 1844 depicts the conservative pontiff who led the Catholic Church during one of its most turbulent nineteenth-century decades—a period of Italian revolutionary movements, challenges to the Papal States, and the struggle to define Catholic doctrine in response to Enlightenment and liberal thought. Gregory XVI, who reigned from 1831 to 1846, was known for his condemnation of religious liberalism, his opposition to railway construction in the Papal States, and his complicated engagement with slavery and missionary activity. Delaroche was received by Gregory in Rome during his Italian sojourn, and this portrait demonstrates his ability to adapt his characteristically intimate psychological approach to the formal requirements of papal portraiture.

The papal portrait renders the pontiff with the formal dignity appropriate to his office, executed in Delaroche's precise, polished manner.