Cardinal Pallavicino was at the very center of the artistic and literary circles of seventeenth-century Rome. A nobleman who joined the Jesuits, he was the author of poems, plays, and theological works. As a major figure in the papal court, he was called upon to devise artistic programs, including that for one of the ceilings of the Palazzo Barberini, and he would have been close to Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the preeminent sculptor and architect for the popes of Baroque Rome. Pallavicino played a key role in the negotiations that led to Bernini’s trip to France in 1665, and after Bernini’s return to Rome, Hugues de Lionne, a former French minister to the papal court, requested a portrait of Pallavicino. The result was this drawing, an intimate psychological portrayal in the simple, direct medium of red chalk. The faded condition of the drawing probably results from its having been displayed by Lionne for many years.