The Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr

Probably a youthful work by Mola, the present picture can be compared to the Landscape with the Ecstasy of Saint Bruno in the Sir Denis Mahon collection, London, and the Landscape with two Carthuisian monks, in the same collection (M. Kahn-Rossi ed., Pier Francesco Mola, 1612-1666, Milan, 1989, pp. 148, 165, illustrated). The composition is an adaptation of the famous altarpiece of the same subject painted by Titian in 1530 and destroyed by fire in 1867. That painting captured the imagination of the age; within two decades of its creation it was praised by Pietro Aretino, Ludovico Dolce, Paolo Pino and Giorgio Vasari and in the 17th Century it was copied and adapted by artists like Domenichino and Johann Carl Loth. Intriguingly, a 1683-7 list of paintings by Mola includes two copies of Titian's altarpiece (R. Cocke, Pier Francesco Mola, Oxford, 1972, p. 73). It clearly represents the impact of Titian on Mola, and his bold appropriation of Titian's forms to very different ends.

We are grateful to Professor Richard Cocke for tentatively confirming the attribution after inspection of the original.