The author focuses on Giacomo Ceruti’s mature period, after his sojourn in the Veneto during the late 1730s. Specific attention is given to the patronage of the cycle of genre canvases painted for Palazzo Busseti in Tortona, whose original arrangement is investigated through the rediscovered inventory of the collection. This casts new light on the identities of other patrons of Ceruti during his years of itinerant activity in Piacenza, Milan and Tortona, for example Ludwig Ferdinand von Oeynhausen Schulenburg, identified here as the military commander portrayed in a celebrated canvas of 1743. In conclusion, the identification of the group of pictures in Palazzo Busseti allows for a more solid reconstruction of the early activity as genre painter of Paolo Borroni of Voghera, an imitator of Ceruti.
