Luca Giordano, called Fa Presto Naples 1634 - 1705

Giordano treated this subject on another occasion, identical in composition but in a slightly more elongated format, in a painting on panel in Palazzo Chigi, Rome (O. Ferrari & G. Scavizzi, Luca Giordano. L'opera completa, Naples 1992, vol. I, p. 291, cat. no. A244b, reproduced vol. II, p. 592, fig. 325). The Chigi picture, along with its pendant representing Polyphemus and Galatea, once formed part of the collection of Andrea d'Avalos, Principe di Montesarchio, until it was left to the Italian State in the 1860s by Alfonso d'Avalos, Marchese del Vasto. The Chigi paintings are unusual for their panel supports and have been dated to the latter half of the 1670s; a probable date for the present version also. Ferrari and Scavizzi (op. cit., p. 291) believe the Chigi pictures may have some studio intervention, whilst Prof. Ferrari (who has inspected the present canvas in the original) believes this to be an autograph version by Giordano himself and suggests that it too may once have had a pendant of Polyphemus and Galatea.

The attribution was endorsed in a letter, dated 6 January 2002, by Prof. Oreste Ferrari, who plans to publish the work in the Supplement to his 1992 monograph.