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拍品專文
Salvator Rosa, born in Arenella, near Naples, in 1615 was one of the most original artists and extravagant personalities of the seventeenth century, he was also an extremely important satirical poet. He first studied painting in Naples with his brother-in-law Francesco Fracanzano, then possibly with Jusepe de Ribera, and finally with Aniello Falcone, from whom he derived an interest in genre and battle paintings.
Following the artist's major commission for a battle scene from Monsignor Neri Corsini, the new Papal ambassador to Louis XIV in 1652, for which he charged the vast sum of 600 scudi, Rosa was only willing to paint battle scenes for the most important patrons. At this point in his successful career Rosa strove hard to be accepted as a history painter, distancing himself somewhat from the lower echelons in the hierarchy of genres (he was also an extremely accomplished landscape painter). The artist was immensely ambitious and famed for his fiery temperament. When Giovanni Battista Ricciardi asked on behalf of a friend if he would paint a battle, he was told 'I think you know how repugnant I find this sort of painting, even though it is my home ground for beating any painter that wants to attack me. He should know that I've more or less vowed not to paint this sort of picture unless I'm paid the price of a Raphael or a Titian' (see J. Scott, op. cit., p. 100). Overtly placing himself on the same level as the most prestigious painters in Italy is an indication of Rosa's ambition.
Ironically, despite the artist's obvious apathy towards such paintings coupled with his considerable dissatisfaction with the papacy of Alexander VII (the recently elevated Fabio Chigi), which was to culminate in the infamous Allegory of Fortuna (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles), the present painting appears to be a direct result of Chigi patronage. The Pope's nephews, Flavio and Agostino had moved to Rome in 1656 and commissioned several paintings directly from the artist, such as the Mercury, Argus and Io, now in the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City. Two years later, Don Agostino married Maria Virginia Borghese, for which occasion an inventory of his possessions was drawn up, which includes the present painting.
Salerno (loc. cit., 1963) advances a date of 1656 for the execution of the painting, on the basis that Agostino Chigi had just arrived in Rome and stylistically it is extremely close to the aforementioned Corsini painting, now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Both have a frieze of figures in vaguely classical armor and use the rounded forms of gray horses as grounding blocks among the chaos of writhing limbs. The individual characters are slightly exaggerated in their violent struggles and a rocky mountain, although more dominant in the Louvre painting, provides a frame for the continuation of the battle seen in the distant plains. Both paintings are grander and more orderly than the melies which Rosa had painted for the Medici a few years earlier. The artist is actively attempting to rival the grandeur of battle scenes by Raphael and Giulio Romano and of Pietro da Cortona's Battle of Alexander and Darius begun over a decade earlier in 1643 and now in the Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome. Rosa renders this heroic battle with rich and expressive brushwork and succeeds in conveying its somber and disturbing power.
In the nineteenth century the painting was purchased by James Jackson Jarves (1818-88), who was descended from a family of French Huguenots who moved first to England and later emigrated to America. During his travels around the world, he amassed a large number of paintings, making him the only serious rival to Thomas Jefferson Bryan as a collector of Old Master paintings in America. In 1863 Jarves exhibited 145 Italian paintings from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries at the New York Historical Society, at the same time that Bryan's collection was entering the institution, with the hope that a museum, preferably in Boston, would buy his collection en bloc, making it 'the nucleus for the study in America of Italian art'. However Jarves's venture met with little success and the collection was deposited at Yale University in 1868 as collateral for a loan of $20,000, which was forfeited three years later. The university decided to keep the paintings and Jarves negotiated a second loan with which he purchased a second group of paintings - 54 in total, including the present painting - which he sold en bloc in 1884 to Mrs. Liberty E. Holden, one of the original founders of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Following the artist's major commission for a battle scene from Monsignor Neri Corsini, the new Papal ambassador to Louis XIV in 1652, for which he charged the vast sum of 600 scudi, Rosa was only willing to paint battle scenes for the most important patrons. At this point in his successful career Rosa strove hard to be accepted as a history painter, distancing himself somewhat from the lower echelons in the hierarchy of genres (he was also an extremely accomplished landscape painter). The artist was immensely ambitious and famed for his fiery temperament. When Giovanni Battista Ricciardi asked on behalf of a friend if he would paint a battle, he was told 'I think you know how repugnant I find this sort of painting, even though it is my home ground for beating any painter that wants to attack me. He should know that I've more or less vowed not to paint this sort of picture unless I'm paid the price of a Raphael or a Titian' (see J. Scott, op. cit., p. 100). Overtly placing himself on the same level as the most prestigious painters in Italy is an indication of Rosa's ambition.
Ironically, despite the artist's obvious apathy towards such paintings coupled with his considerable dissatisfaction with the papacy of Alexander VII (the recently elevated Fabio Chigi), which was to culminate in the infamous Allegory of Fortuna (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles), the present painting appears to be a direct result of Chigi patronage. The Pope's nephews, Flavio and Agostino had moved to Rome in 1656 and commissioned several paintings directly from the artist, such as the Mercury, Argus and Io, now in the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City. Two years later, Don Agostino married Maria Virginia Borghese, for which occasion an inventory of his possessions was drawn up, which includes the present painting.
Salerno (loc. cit., 1963) advances a date of 1656 for the execution of the painting, on the basis that Agostino Chigi had just arrived in Rome and stylistically it is extremely close to the aforementioned Corsini painting, now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Both have a frieze of figures in vaguely classical armor and use the rounded forms of gray horses as grounding blocks among the chaos of writhing limbs. The individual characters are slightly exaggerated in their violent struggles and a rocky mountain, although more dominant in the Louvre painting, provides a frame for the continuation of the battle seen in the distant plains. Both paintings are grander and more orderly than the melies which Rosa had painted for the Medici a few years earlier. The artist is actively attempting to rival the grandeur of battle scenes by Raphael and Giulio Romano and of Pietro da Cortona's Battle of Alexander and Darius begun over a decade earlier in 1643 and now in the Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome. Rosa renders this heroic battle with rich and expressive brushwork and succeeds in conveying its somber and disturbing power.
In the nineteenth century the painting was purchased by James Jackson Jarves (1818-88), who was descended from a family of French Huguenots who moved first to England and later emigrated to America. During his travels around the world, he amassed a large number of paintings, making him the only serious rival to Thomas Jefferson Bryan as a collector of Old Master paintings in America. In 1863 Jarves exhibited 145 Italian paintings from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries at the New York Historical Society, at the same time that Bryan's collection was entering the institution, with the hope that a museum, preferably in Boston, would buy his collection en bloc, making it 'the nucleus for the study in America of Italian art'. However Jarves's venture met with little success and the collection was deposited at Yale University in 1868 as collateral for a loan of $20,000, which was forfeited three years later. The university decided to keep the paintings and Jarves negotiated a second loan with which he purchased a second group of paintings - 54 in total, including the present painting - which he sold en bloc in 1884 to Mrs. Liberty E. Holden, one of the original founders of the Cleveland Museum of Art.