Lot Essay
The present picture and the following lot, which hung together in the entrance hall of Palazzo Sagredo until the early 1970s, were first published by Professor Rodolfo Pallucchini, loc. cit., as early works by Sebastiano Ricci. Stressing the similarities between lot 51 in the present sale and the Antiochus and the Doctors formerly in the Aula Magna of the University of Parma, and since 1972 in the Galleria Nazionale there (Pallucchini, op. cit., fig. 50; Daniels, op. cit., Hove, pp. 91-2, no. 311, and fig. 231; Daniels, op. cit., Milan, no. 6, illustrated; Martini, op. cit., 1976,
fig. 455), which had always been considered the work of Ricci, he places all three paintings among a group of pictures datable to the late 1680s and 'caratterizzato da un chiaroscuro brutale e da un naturalismo abbastanza rude, eco del gusto dei "tenebrosi" veneziani, da una certa tipologia tra il Bellucci ed il Cervelli nonchè da un impianto narrativo tra emiliano e napoletano'.
Jeffrey Daniels, while admitting the evident resemblances between the present pictures and the Parma Antiochus, which he accepts as Ricci and dates c. 1680, proposes an attribution to Antonio Bellucci with the footnote 'another possibility is Niccolò Bambini' (whom Ivanoff had suggested as the author of the Antiochus). Professor Martini, loc. cit., 1964, attributes the present paintings to Brusaferro ('eccellente talvolta fino a confondersi quasi con Sebastiano Ricci', ibid., p. 116), pointing out that 'in essi confluiscono in verità molti elementi del Bambino e del Ricci insieme', and that Palazzo Sagredo also formerly housed a ceiling by Brusaferro (his fig. 243). In 1976, loc. cit., he used the attribution to give also the Parma Antiochus to Brusaferro, at the moment in which he 'tentava anche di seguire la maniera di Sebastiano Ricci' (A.M. Zanetti, Della Pittura Veneziana ..., Venice, 1771, p. 431); this attribution has found the acceptance of Aldo Rizzi (in the catalogue of the exhibition, Sebastiano Ricci, Villa Manin, Passariano, 25 June-19 Nov. 1989,
p. 50).
fig. 455), which had always been considered the work of Ricci, he places all three paintings among a group of pictures datable to the late 1680s and 'caratterizzato da un chiaroscuro brutale e da un naturalismo abbastanza rude, eco del gusto dei "tenebrosi" veneziani, da una certa tipologia tra il Bellucci ed il Cervelli nonchè da un impianto narrativo tra emiliano e napoletano'.
Jeffrey Daniels, while admitting the evident resemblances between the present pictures and the Parma Antiochus, which he accepts as Ricci and dates c. 1680, proposes an attribution to Antonio Bellucci with the footnote 'another possibility is Niccolò Bambini' (whom Ivanoff had suggested as the author of the Antiochus). Professor Martini, loc. cit., 1964, attributes the present paintings to Brusaferro ('eccellente talvolta fino a confondersi quasi con Sebastiano Ricci', ibid., p. 116), pointing out that 'in essi confluiscono in verità molti elementi del Bambino e del Ricci insieme', and that Palazzo Sagredo also formerly housed a ceiling by Brusaferro (his fig. 243). In 1976, loc. cit., he used the attribution to give also the Parma Antiochus to Brusaferro, at the moment in which he 'tentava anche di seguire la maniera di Sebastiano Ricci' (A.M. Zanetti, Della Pittura Veneziana ..., Venice, 1771, p. 431); this attribution has found the acceptance of Aldo Rizzi (in the catalogue of the exhibition, Sebastiano Ricci, Villa Manin, Passariano, 25 June-19 Nov. 1989,
p. 50).