A young boy in livery with two English setters in a landscape

This engaging portrait of a boy in livery rescuing a pair of breeding partridges (denoted as such by the red ribbons on their legs) from two black and white English setters is a fine example of the work Niccoló Cassana produced with his brother Giovanni Agostino during the early eighteenth century. Trained by their father Giovanni Francesco Cassana, whose work owed much to the Genoese tradition of Bernardo Strozzi, the brothers later worked in Venice and Florence, frequently for the Medici family, until Niccoló’s departure for England in 1709. Whilst his brother was a talented portraitist, Giovanno Agostino Cassana focused his attentions as a genre painter, often contributing the animal and still-life elements in his sibling’s work. The spirited animals in the present picture are a characteristic example of the ‘living still-lifes’ which typify his work.

Niccoló Cassana had attempted to succeed as the official portraitist to the Medici after the death of Sustermans in 1681. Though his attempt was not successful, he later met Grand Prince Ferdinando de’ Medic in Venice in 1688, and soon established a fruitful working relationship with him. The present picture can be related to a number of pictures the brothers produced for the Medici family, like the Portrait of Angiola Biondi, a dwarf in the service of Violante Beatrice of Bavaria (Florence, Palazzo Pitti), which also shows animals by Giovanni Agostino.