Susannah and the Elders

The Venetian painter Pietro Negri was born in 1628. Eschewing the Mannerism of the previous generation and particularly of Palma Giovane, Negri fully embraced the naturalism of the Baroque championed by Francesco Ruschi, as well as his close friend Antonio Zanchi, with whose work Negri’s has often been confused. Negri's undisputed masterpiece, the monumental canvas depicting the Madonna saving Venice from the Plague of 1630, executed in 1673 for the grand staircase of the Scuola di San Rocco, faces Zanchi's celebrated picture of the Virgin appearing to Plague Victims that had been completed seven years earlier. We are grateful to Professor Bernard Aikema for confirming the attribution on the basis of images.