The valuable self-portrait is a very rare youthful effigy painted on paper by the young Cremonese artist, a year before her debut at the Spanish court of Philip II, as a companion of his third wife, the French Isabelle di Valois. At the time of its execution, the myth of the lady painter was already consolidated, despite the young age of the artist, as Giorgio Vasari attests in 1568: "We can therefore say with the divine Ariosto, & with truth that Women have come in excellence of each Art they have taken care of ". The painter demonstrates that she has assimilated the enameled classicism of her first master Bernardino Campi, whose portraits were praised for the agreement between live resemblance and a lot of grace, the inclination to sobriety, formal rigor, safe, soft modeling. and the technique of outlining the profile of the portrayed on a light background reveal the influence of Giovanni Battista Moroni from Bergamo. The work is documented in the Colonna collection since the ancient inventories of the early seventeenth century.

Jan Brueghel the Elder belongs to a veritable dynasty of Antwerp painters, started by his father Pieter Bruegel the Elder, continued with him and his brother Pieter Brueghel the Younger. The subject represented is taken from the myth of Orpheus, singer and musician, son of Apollo, who according to legend had the gift of enchanting every creature thanks to the sound of his lyre. He had descended into the Underworld to move the deities of the Underworld with his concert and restore his dead beloved, Eurydice, to life. From a stylistic point of view, Jan takes up the infernal scenarios and the extravagant creatures that made Hieronymus Bosch and his own father Pieter famous. From the latter, he took up above all the theme of the personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins. The painting entered the Colonna collection in the eighteenth century following an exchange with Cardinal Alessandro Albani of a “Statue of Jupiter”, coming from the gardens of Palazzo Colonna.

The famous Venetian painter portrays the Augustinian monk Onofrio Panvinio, a very learned and industrious humanist, who attended to research and interpretations of Roman antiquities. Characteristic of the Tintoretto language are the effects of light that specifically illuminate the face and hands to enhance the erudition of the portrayed, accentuated by a lively look at the observer. The ancient history of the painting can be traced back to 1672, when it is described in the will of the Salviati family in Florence. From 1718, it became part of the Colonna collection as part of the marriage dowry of Caterina Zeffirina Salviati, who married Fabrizio Colonna.

The Roverella polyptych is a masterful work by Cosmé Tura, the court painter of the Este family in Ferrara. The work was commissioned at the end of the fifteenth century by the Roverella family for the church of San Giorgio. The ancient history of the painting can only be reconstructed from 1706. In the nineteenth century, the Polyptych was dismembered and our work, corresponding to the lower right compartment of the composition, is documented in the Colonna collection starting from 1836. The identification of the other compartments was rebuilt by Roberto Longhi and the two most famous parts are preserved in important European museums: the central door depicting the Madonna enthroned with musician angels at the National Gallery in London and the monumental lunette above, depicting the Deposition of Christ, at the Louvre Museum in Paris.