Lot Essay
Luigi Salerno was first to cite the present work as Salvator Rosa's prime version of the subject and thus the picture first recorded in the Chigi collection in 1658 where it hung as a pendant to Claude's David at the Cave of Adullam (National Gallery, London; op. cit., 1963). However, Salerno subsequently published the canvas, cut down on the right side, in the Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas, as the original, on the basis that its provenance goes back to Robert Sloane, the buyer of the Rosa and the Claude from the Chigi family at the end of the 18th century (op. cit., 1975). Even so, Burton Fredericksen in 1991 remained equivocal as to which version was the prime one, suggesting that 'in spite of its Chigi provenance, the Kansas city painting may well be a replica of the Harris version rather than vice versa' (loc. cit.). This theory was also taken up by Jonathan Scott who published the present picture in 1996 as the original (loc. cit.). A third version of the composition, adjudged to be a copy, is in the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, Massachusetts.