Apollo flaying Marsyas

This painting of Apollo and Marsyas has traditionally been attributed to Andrea Sacchi, a name it has been associated with since entering the Hamilton collection in the nineteenth century. Its unusually spirited brushwork suggests that it may have been conceived as a sketch or modello. However, the panel support and overall format indicate a quite different function: a visible keyhole on the reverse implies that the painting may once have formed part of a piece of furniture, perhaps a cupboard door. The fluidity of movement in the figures finds parallels in Sacchi's drawings.

The first recorded owner of this picture was William Douglas-Hamilton, 12th Duke of Hamilton, who inherited his father's titles and responsibilities at just eighteen years of age. Along with these, he also inherited the family's substantial debts, and his own financial difficulties increased dramatically due to excessive spending and gambling. Despite commissioning - at great expense - two large passenger steamers and two luxury yachts between 1868 and 1882, and undertaking costly improvements to his estate at Easton Park in Suffolk, he remained a passionate art collector, following a long-standing family tradition. Much of the celebrated Hamilton collection was ultimately dispersed in sales held over seventeen days at Christie's in London in June and July 1882, a landmark sale that has been described as ‘the most magnificent that has ever been sold in London’ (G. Reitlinger, The Economics of Taste: The Rise and Fall of Picture Prices 1760-1960, 1961, p. 128).