Bacchus and Ariadne

Details

Giuseppe Maria Crespi, called lo Spagnuolo (Bologna 1665-1747)
Bacchus and Ariadne
oil on canvas
37¾ x 30 in. (95.9 x 76.2 cm.)

Provenance

(Possibly) Marchese Santi, Parma.
with Giovanni Salocchi, Florence, c. 1959-60 (according to a notice in the Fototeca Fondazione Federico Zeri).
Acquired by the Countess Nadia de Navarro, Glen Head, New York, prior to 1964.

Literature

(Possibly) G. Zanotti, Storia dell'Accademia Clementina di Bologna, Bologna, 1739, II, p. 62.
(Possibly) L. Crespi, La certosa di Bologna descritta nelle sue pitture, Bologna, 1769, 216.
M.P. Merriman, Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Milan, 1980, p. 279, no. 155.

Exhibited

Milan, Palazzo Reale, Arte Europea da una Collezione Americana, March-April 1964, no. 21 (catalogue by R. De Grada).

Sale room notice

Please note that the canvas is lined.

Lot Essay

Mira Pajes Merriman (loc. cit.) dates this large nocturnal scene to c. 1730, noting that it relates stylistically to a group of paintings from this period including Jupiter among the Corybantes (formerly in the Thesiger collection, London) and two Pastoral Scenes in the Longhi collection, Florence. She further notes that the Drunken Silenus group at right develops an earlier composition by Crespi of c. 1690-95 in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna. The attribution to Giuseppe Maria Crespi was confirmed by Roberto Longhi and Francesco Arcangeli at the time of the 1964 exhibition at the Palazzo Reale in Milan.

More from Old Masters

View All