- 90
Carlo Maratti
Description
- Carlo Maratti
- Venus and Cupid
- oil on canvas
Provenance
Condition
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."
Catalogue Note
This painting will be included in Dr. Stella Rudolph's forthcoming catalogue raisonné on the works of Carlo Maratti, to be published in 2010. She considers it to be a mature work by the artist and dates it to circa 1685-90. She has also requested this painting for an exhibition on the works of Maratti that she will be curating following the publication of her book.
Maratti painted two other different depictions of Venus and Cupid, one now in Schleissheim Palace, Germany and another in a private collection.1 A work of this subject was painted for Niccolò Maria Pallavicini, the artist's most important patron in Rome however, according to Dr. Rudolph, it is not clear which of these three known versions is the former Pallavicini picture.
1. See S. Rudolph, Niccolò Maria Pallavicini. L'Acesa al Tempio della Vertù attravesro il Mecenatismo, Rome 1995, p. 61, reproduced fig. 37 (Schl painting), and pp. 62-3, reproduced in color p. 10 (private collection painting).