A park landscape with elegant figures conversing

Angeluccio was apparently of Flemish origin, and according to Pascoli (Vite de'pittori ..., 1730, I, pp. 29-30) he was Claude's most talented assistant in Rome. Some twenty works by him are recorded in the inventories of the Chigi collection (see L. Salerno, Pittori di Paesaggio del Seicento a Roma, 1988, II, p. 480) and it is on the basis of these paintings that his hand has been identified. These include A ford, and Games in a garden in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome, (Inv. nos. 34 and 35), in which the figures are by Michelangelo Cerquozzi. Salerno notes that Angeluccio devoted himself to pure landscape but that the figures in his paintings were often executed by either Jan Miel or Michelangelo Cerquozzi. On comparison with the two works noted above and with others (see Salerno, op. cit., pp. 481-5, nos. 78.1-11) it seems probable that the staffage in the present painting is by Cerquozzi.