Attributed to Corrado Giaquinto Molfetta near Bari 1703 - 1766 Naples

Anonymous sale, Milan, Finarte, March 1980, lot 447;
Anonymous sale, Rome, Christie's, 11 May 1993, lot 95 (as Corrado Giaquinto).

Catalogo Bolaffi della pittura italiana del '600 e '700, no. 3, Turin 1980, p. 80, reproduced (as Corrado Giaquinto).

The theme of The Adoration of the Magi is not unusual in Giaquinto's work and the composition repeats that in his painting of the same dimensions in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. no. 9677), as well as relating to a painting formerly with Sestieri, Rome. The Vienna picture has been dated to the 1740s and a similar date of execution seems plausible here. Some of the figures, namely the turbaned and bearded magi, are also repeated in another painting by Giaquinto in the Pinacoteca Comunale, Bevagna, though this is of upright format (see Giaquinto. Capolavori dalle Corti in Europa, exhibition catalogue, Bari, Castello Svevo, 23 April-20 June 1993, cat. no. 28, reproduced in colour).