Manius Curius Dentatus and the Samnite Ambassadors

Episodes from the life of Roman statesman Manius Curius Dentatus (d. 270 BCE) were related by the most important authors of classical antiquity, including Cicero, Pliny and Plutarch. Famed for his frugality, Dentatus is said to have been found cooking turnips by a retinue of ambassadors sent from his enemy, the Samnites; the anecdote is likely apocryphal but nevertheless proved a popular subject for painters. The general is typically shown turning away from the hearth towards the ambassadors who, in an attempt to curry favour with their opponents, bring gifts and riches, which Dentatus refuses with outstretched palm. By Valerius Maximus’ account (Facta et dicta memorabilia, IV, written circa 27-31 CE) the general preferred ruling over the possessors of gold rather than possessing the gold itself.

Both the subject of this painting as well as that of its former pendant, Croesus and Solon (fig. 1), allegorise the vanity of earthly riches and the virtues of denouncing them. Croesus, King of Lydia, is shown pointing to his piles of riches while the Athenian sage, Solon, with a white beard and dressed in rags, advises him that the humble, when blessed with good fortune, achieve greater happiness than Croesus with all his riches. The pair seem likely to have been separated at the 1929 Lepke sale (see Provenance) and the pendant was sold, more recently, at Sotheby's, London, 4 July 2012, lot 37 (for £313,250). Gotthard Agath (loc. cit.) implied that the group of five paintings by Platzer sold at the Lepke auction had been consigned by the Russian Royal family, a claim which has yet to be firmly substantiated.

Born into a family of painters in the southern Tyrol, Platzer became the leading exponent of the Austrian Rococo style. He probably arrived in Vienna around 1726 and enrolled in the Akademie der Bildenden Künste. Together with his friend and contemporary Franz Christoph Janneck (1703-1761), he specialised in painting small-scale conversation pieces and allegorical works, remarkable for their jewel-like detail, and before long he became the painter of choice for the Viennese nobility. His astonishing attention to the depiction of fine detail has drawn comparisons with the seventeenth-century Leiden fijnschilders, famed for their high degree of skill and polish.

Despite the subject’s tendency towards moral instruction, the present work beautifully demonstrates Platzer's striking palette and miniaturist technique, with a characteristic attention paid to rich fabrics and elegant figures enlivened by artful gesture. The highly finished details of his elaborate interiors are further enhanced by the use of copper as his preferred support; the present copper panel is on an unusually impressive scale and is amongst the largest in Platzer's oeuvre.