Anton von Maron Vienna 1733 - 1808 Rome

Possibly Palazzao Borghese, Rome (see footnote above);
With Chaucer Fine Arts, London, 1990.

London, Chaucer Fine Arts, Old Master Paintings and selected works by Gian Paolo Panini, 26 October - 14 December 1990, no. 23.

The attribution to Von Maron is supported by a copy, drawn by the engraver Nikolaus Mosmann (c.1727-1787) (inv. no. T519; British Museum, London), which records Von Maron's authorship and is also inscribed: Palazzo Borghese Rome, suggesting that it may originally have belonged to the Borghese family. A version, also oval but painted en grisaille, was formerly in the Esterhazy collection and is now in the Szépmüvészeti Múzeum in Budapest (inv. no. 776a; exhibited in Rome, Museo di Roma (Palazzo Braschi), Artisti Austriaci a Roma dal Barocco alla Secessione, March - April 1972, no. 32). Such monochrome cartoons seem to have been part of the studio practice of Anton Raphael Mengs, under whom Von Maron trained and on whose mature style his own was entirely based, and indeed the Budapest version was traditionally attributed to him. As Dr. Steffi Röttgen has pointed out, in details such as the figure of the shepherd Von Maron may have been influenced by Mengs's Adoration of the Shepherds in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, painted during the artist's sojourn at the Spanish court between 1770-73 (for which see S. Röttgen, Anton Raphael Mengs 1728-1779, Munich 1999, vol. I, p. 49, no. 19, reproduced).