Lot Essay
Although formerly attributed to Bartolomeo Schedoni, the present picture is a characteristic work by the Neapolitan artist Spinelli, who is recorded by de Dominici as having been a pupil and collaborator of Massimo Stanzione in Naples. The darkly theatrical lighting and facial types found in the present work are tellingly reminiscent of Spinelli's canvas of Lot and his Daughters in the Pisani Collection in Naples, while the melodramatically outstretched arms of the Christ Child are paralleled by the tambourine-playing Israelite women in the Triumph of David in the Pitti Palace, Florence. Probably a relatively early work, the present picture may well have been executed in the 1630s.