Innocent XI is depicted in a mozzetta, camauro cap and wide stole ornamented with stylized acanthus leaves and the symmetrically repeated coat of arms of the Odescalchi family, with tiara and keys. It belongs to a series of bust portraits of popes which the Odescalchi family commissioned from Domenico Guidi in the 1690s. Only marble versions of the busts of Alexander VII, Alexander VIII, Innocent X and Innocent XII are known, as well as many terracotta and bronze repetitions. Sculptures that were part of the series can now be found in various collections in Italy, England and the United States of America.
The bust in the Royal Castle in Warsaw was probably made shortly after 1693. It bears all the features of the other sculptures in the series. Innocent XI was portrayed in a camauro cap, cape and wide stole ornamented with the coats of arms at chest height. The face is in three quarter view facing right. Like the other sculptures, the shoulders and torso form an equilateral triangle. The arrangement of the folds of the cape is also very similar.
Guidi’s bust of the pope may have been used a few years after it was made as the model for the likeness of Innocent XI on his tombstone in St. Peter’s Basilica sculpted by Camillo Rusconi and completed in 1701. An almost identical but damaged bust of Innocent XI can be found in the museum in Ilok (Croatia).

The sculpture was formerly in the collections of the Dukes Odescalchi in Italy and later in a private collection in the UK. 1980 – gift of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

Domenico Guidi (Torano 1628–1701 Rome).
Italian sculptor. Active in Rome from 1648, he began his career in the workshop of Alessandro Algardi. His most important works include a monumental relief depicting the Holy Family in the church of S. Agnese in Rome and the tombstone of Clement IX in the church of S. Maria Maggiore. After the deaths of Bernini and Algardi he ran one of the largest sculpture workshops on the River Tiber. His patrons and clients included Queen Christina of Sweden and King Louis XIV of France, for whom he made the sculpture of Fame (at Versailles).

Innocent XI, born Benedetto Odescalchi (1611–89). Bishop of Novara, papal nuncio to Ferrare, cardinal from 1645, pope from 1676. His foreign policy was focused on preventing the expansion of Turkey. He was an initiator of the Holy League. He contributed to the Austro-Polish alliance and encouraged King Jan III Sobieski to come to the relief of Vienna which was besieged by the Turks in 1683. He was in contention with Louis XIV over the sovereignty of the Catholic Church in France. He was beatified in 1956.