The Destruction of the Children of Niobe

We are grateful to Mme. Nicole Dacos and Professor Riccardo Lattuada for independently proposing the attribution to Bernardino, the brother and pupil of Giuseppe Cesari, il Cavalier d'Arpino. Professor Lattuada has pointed out that the central female figure in the present picture corresponds to the Venus or Venere-Tramonto, in the Cavalier d'Arpino's ceiling fresco in the Palazzo del Pio Sodalizio dei Piceni, Rome (fig. 1), for which there is a preparatory drawing in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (no. 382). In addition, the retreating female with her arms crossed derives from the figure of Eve in The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden at Christ Church, Oxford, a composition that was repeated several times by Giuseppe and also used by Bernardino in the copper of circa 1606, in the Wellington Museum, Apsley House, London.