Giovanni Stefano Danedi called Montalto Treviglio 1608 - 1689 Milan

The Reverend J.T.C. Chatto, Shepherd's Bush, London (according to labels affixed to the stretcher);
The Ernst family, Batcombe, Somerset;
Presented by the above to the present owners in the early 1900s.

Like his elder brother Giuseppe, who was also a painter, the artistic personality of Giovanni Stefano Danedi was clearly formed upon the early Seicento Milanese heritage of Cerano, Camillo and Giulio Cesare Procaccini, Daniele Crespi and, in particular, that of Morazzone, in whose studio he is often thought to have trained. His later work shows some slight influence of Pietro da Cortona, whose paintings he may perhaps have seen in Rome, and more clearly that of the Genoese painters Domenico Piola and Giovanni Battista Carlone. Although a chronology for Montalto's work is very difficult to establish, this is likely to be a mature work as it enjoys numerous parallels with the two large altarpieces depicting The Annunciation and The Assumption of the Virgin painted for the Church of San Giacomo and San Filippo in Pavia, which Castellotti (La Pittura Lombarda del '600, Milan 1985, reproduced figs. 243 and 244) dates to around 1660. The treatment of the figures may also be compared, for example, to Montalto's frescoes for the Certosa in the same city, and for these and the fullest discussion of his work see L. Bandera Gregori, I Montalto - Pittori Trevigliesi del '600, exhibition catalogue, Treviglio, Museo Civico, 1985, pp. 46-47, figs. 35 and 36.