A satyr watching a Bacchanalian dance

This drawing was attributed to Pietro Novelli and later to Gaetano Zompini, a Venetian artist deeply influenced by Sebastiano Ricci. The style of the composition, however, is different, and of higher quality, than the few known drawings by Zompini. The subject of the dance recalls Poussin’s painting with A Bacchanalian revel before a Term in London (NG 62; see H. Wine, National Gallery Catalogues. The Seventeenth Century French Paintings, London, 2001, pp. 288-295).