Antonio Zanchi

Pericle Stavropulos, Athens, circa 1936;
Private collection, Athens, by 1966.

A. Riccoboni, 'Antonio Zanchi e la Pittura Veneziana del Seicento' in Saggi e memorie di storia dell'arte, Florence 1966, vol. 5, p. 117, no. 12, reproduced p. 195.

The painting is warmer and slightly yellower in tone than it appears in the catalogue illustration. The painting is not excessively dirty and the varnish layer is not particularly discoloured. The canvas has been very recently relined and restretched onto a new stretcher. The paint was solidly applied and the surface has not suffered from wear. The painting's condition is very good overall, retaining much of its impasto. Inspection under ultra-violet light is not easy due to the varnish layer but there appear to be two significant areas of damage: one, the largest, near the left forearm of the falling man, just left of centre, and the other is a horizontal line running along Ajax's brow and forehead (approx. 10 cm.). Further retouchings should be presumed in areas where the varnish fluoresces, particularly in the background and in the darker tones. The painting could be hung as it is, though it is offered unframed.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The Greek mythological hero Ajax was the son of Telamon, King of Salamis. He was the cousin of Achilles, and after him one of the greatest heroes of the Trojan War. It was he who defended the corpse of Patroclus and later carried the body of Achilles from the field of battle. His grief following the latter's death, as well as his failure to convince the Greeks that he should inherit his armour, led him to take his own life with the sword given to him by his Trojan opponent Hector.  According to Ovid's Metamorphoses  (13, 391-426), where his blood fell the purple hyacinth grew up.

This dramatic tenebrist canvas is probably a work of Zanchi's early maturity, dating from around or shortly after 1660. At this date his work betrays a keen interest in the early work of Luca Giordano and the Genoese Giovanni Battista Langetti, who had recently settled in Venice. Comparable figures may, for example, be found in his Alexander the Great and the body of Darius painted for the Palazzo Albrizzi in Venice and still in situ.