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Lot Essay
Despite the obvious quality of this picture, there is as yet no consensus as to its attribution. Almost certainly it was painted in Italy, probably in the third or fourth decade of the seventeenth century. Evidently the author was familiar with the innovations of Caravaggio but it is not obvious that the artist is himself Italian. Keith Christiansen, Andrea G. de Marchi and Nicola Spinosa have all, independently, proposed that it might be by an itinerant French Caravaggesque artist, perhaps a figure like the so-called Pensionante di Saraceni in whose work one sees the sort of expressive hand gestures, the almond-shaped eyes, and the smoothly rendered modeling of face and hands which are hallmarks of this artist's style.
That notwithstanding, what distinguishes this picture from other generically Caravaggesque paintings is its frontal dramatic composition. The massive figures converse in a constricted space, the tightness of the picture plane instead of forcing them melodramatically into our space as in, say, the compositions of Mattia Preti, presses them towards each other, intensifying their own interior dialogue. This was the way with Caravaggio, especially in his later work, and it is to one of the members of the Lombard master's circle that we assign this beautiful and moving canvas. The figure of St. Peter recalls Batistello Caracciolo's St. Joseph in the Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Palazzo Pitti, Florence); the dramatically lit hands are similar to those in the Saints Cosmas and Damian (Prado, Madrid), while the broadly handled draperies and the frontal composition bring to mind Batistello's Lot and his daughters (Private collection, Milan). It was Jacques Cuzin who detected a Caracciolesque quality in this picture; however, based on a transparency, Stefano Causa does does not believe it to be by Caracciolo or indeed any of his Neapolitan followers. The only other artistic center in which so Caravaggesque a picture could have been painted is Rome, and in fact Causa has suggested that the author might be David de Haan, who worked in Rome with Baburen on the decoration of the Pieta Chapel, S. Pietro in Montorio, c. 1617-1620, and entered the service of Caravaggio's patron, Vincenzo Giustiniani, in whose palace he lived.
That notwithstanding, what distinguishes this picture from other generically Caravaggesque paintings is its frontal dramatic composition. The massive figures converse in a constricted space, the tightness of the picture plane instead of forcing them melodramatically into our space as in, say, the compositions of Mattia Preti, presses them towards each other, intensifying their own interior dialogue. This was the way with Caravaggio, especially in his later work, and it is to one of the members of the Lombard master's circle that we assign this beautiful and moving canvas. The figure of St. Peter recalls Batistello Caracciolo's St. Joseph in the Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Palazzo Pitti, Florence); the dramatically lit hands are similar to those in the Saints Cosmas and Damian (Prado, Madrid), while the broadly handled draperies and the frontal composition bring to mind Batistello's Lot and his daughters (Private collection, Milan). It was Jacques Cuzin who detected a Caracciolesque quality in this picture; however, based on a transparency, Stefano Causa does does not believe it to be by Caracciolo or indeed any of his Neapolitan followers. The only other artistic center in which so Caravaggesque a picture could have been painted is Rome, and in fact Causa has suggested that the author might be David de Haan, who worked in Rome with Baburen on the decoration of the Pieta Chapel, S. Pietro in Montorio, c. 1617-1620, and entered the service of Caravaggio's patron, Vincenzo Giustiniani, in whose palace he lived.