* Marcantonio Franceschini Bologna 1648 - 1729

We are grateful to Professor Dwight Miller who, based on photographs, confirms the present painting to be a work by Franceschini.  He dates it to a very early phase of the artist's work, circa 1678-79, when he is still strongly under the influence of his master, Carlo Cignani.  Stylistically, Miller relates it to two other early works by Franceschini, Lot and His Daughters and the Hospitality of Lot, in the collection of Credito Emiliano, Reggio Emilia (see D. Miller, Marcantionio Franceschini, 2001, p. 249, cat. nos. 148a and 148b, reproduced plates II and III).