Mattia Preti

B. De Dominici, Vite de' Pittori Scultori ed Architetti Napoletani, Naples 1742, vol. III, p. 374;
J.T. Spike, in E. Corace ed., Mattia Preti, Rome 1989, p. 44, reproduced p. 43, fig. 16;
J.T. Spike, Mattia Preti - Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Florence 1999, pp. 157-8, cat. no. 67, reproduced.

The painting depicts Tomyris, Queen of the nomadic people of Massagetae in central Asia, submerging the severed head of Cyrus, King of Persia, in a basin of human blood, having repulsed his invasion of her lands in a violent battle in 530 B.C. This was clearly a favoured subject of Preti's, as he painted it on two other occasions; the others being in Paris, Musée du Louvre (see Spike, under Literature, cat. no. 153, reproduced p. 235) and in Naples, formerly in the collection of Maria Rosa Jerace (op. cit., cat. no. 385, reproduced p. 390). Spike dates the present painting to the early 1670s due to the predominantly silver and grey tonalities, which are closely comparable to those of the Canonisation of St. Catherine altarpiece in the Church of San Domenico, Siena (ibid., cat. no. 216, reproduced p. 280). According to Spike, the Paris version can be dated to the second half of the 1680s, being closely comparable to the St. Paul Cycle in the Cathedral of Medina; the Naples version, due to its compositional similarities, may be dated to the same period, thus making the present painting the earliest of the three. 

Bernardo De Dominici, who described this painting when it was in the collection of Don Domenico Romeo in Naples, remarked upon its colourful palette, noting that it was more characteristic of Solimena than of Preti: "D. Domenico Romeo esemplarissimo Sacerdote Missionario, figliuolo di Luigi Romeo,... possiede un quadro in cui è figurata Tomiri, che fa porre in una Utre di Sangue la testa di Ciro: Egli è dipinto con molta vaghezza di tinte, ed hà una fascia sottilissima di color cilestro a traversa del petto, dipinta con tal bellezza di colore, e leggerezza, e belle pieghe, che sembra del nostro Solimena, e non del Commendatore, ch'era forte nel colorito, e caricato ne' scuri". These qualities are perhaps a recollection of Preti's trip to Venice between 1643 and 1646. The silvery tonality also recalls Giovanni Lanfranco's major fresco cycles in Naples, executed between 1633 and 1646, which Preti would certainly have seen. With the advent of the plague in Naples in 1676, however, Preti's works acquired a darker tonality, which together with a much broader handling, replaced the brightness and colour evident in works such as this from earlier in the decade.