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This study focuses on a conversation piece painted in 1771 by Venceslao Wehrlin (1744-80), now in a private Parisian collection. The work, depicting Senator Giovanni Federighi (1716-84) and his three children in his scientific cabinet, has been identified as the Portrait of the Federighi Family, mentioned in Pelli’s Efemeridi. The painting offers a rare view of an 18th-century Florentine scientific cabinet. Each instrument, including a barometer now in the Museo Galileo, has been identified. The biographies of all four figures were reconstructed, especially Federighi’s, a key figure in Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo’s reforms. His correspondence with scholar Fromond reveals his intellectual pursuits and thoughts on the ‘camera obscura’, likely used by Wehrlin. Wehrlin died in Federighi’s home in 1780.
