Gioacchino Assereto

This impressive composition by Assereto is an important addition to the artist's oeuvre. Assereto was used to working on a large scale and many of his multi-figural compositions dating from the decade 1635-45 contain figures and motifs that find parallels in the present work, thus arguing for a probable date of execution of circa 1640 for the present painting. The half-dressed man lower left, holding up Moses, may be compared to a similar repoussoir figure in Assereto's painting of Servius Tullius with his hair on fire (162 by 136 cm.) in the Galleria di Palazzo Bianco, Genoa (reproduced in P. Pagano & M.C. Galassi, La pittura del '600 a Genova, Milan 1988, fig. 35). The old woman and Pharaoh's daughter wearing a crown may be compared to two similar figures in Assereto's large signed painting (147.5 by 196 cm.) in a private collection, also of a subject taken from the legend of Servius Tullius, dated to the 1640s (see L. Ghio Vallarino, in Genova nell'Età Barocca, exhibition catalogue, Genoa, Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola & Galleria di Palazzo Reale, 2 May - 26 July 1992, pp. 92-94, cat. no. 6, reproduced in colour). The disposition of a group of three-quarter length figures, gathered around a central point, seems to be a compositional motif which recurs in Assereto's large paintings at this date. The focal point here is the baby Moses and all the figures' gestures and expressions are directed towards him. The facial types, in particular those of the children, and the handling of paint (notably the highlights on the draperies) all find parallels in the works mentioned above, as well as in Assereto's enormous painting of Alexander the Great in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes (182 by 219 cm.; see M. Newcome, in Kunst in der Republik Genua 1528-1815, exhibition catalogue, Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 5 September - 8 November 1992, p. 83, cat. no. 22, reproduced in colour plate 20).

We are grateful to Dr. Mary Newcome Schleier for endorsing the attribution to Assereto and confirming a date of execution circa 1640 on the basis of a colour transparency.