Salvator Rosa

Probably Anne-Claude-Philippe, comte de Caylus (1692-1765), bears on the backing sheet star similar to L.2919, inscribed in pen and ink: cast 76;

unidentified collector's mark on the verso: BF (L.3068);

sale, London, Sotheby's, 10 December 1975, lot 10 (bought by H. Shickman);

with Shickman Gallery, New York;

sale, London, Sotheby's, 10 July 2002, lot 145;

sale, New York, Sotheby's, 25 January 2023, lot 44

M. Mahoney, The drawings of Salvator Rosa, New York 1977, vol. I, p. 687, cat. 80.10, reproduced vol. II, fig. 80.10;

C. Volpi, Salvator Rosa (1615-1673) ''pittore famoso'', Rome 2014, p. 590, under cat. 316 

This is a preliminary and vivid study for a painting of the same subject in the collection of Lord Somers, Hampshire.¹ Mahoney lists eleven other pen and ink studies for the same composition and dates them on stylistic grounds to the second half of the 1660s.² He also mentions several related drawings executed in pen and brown ink and wash on small wooden panels.³ Empedocles was a poet, philosopher and historian who lived in Agrigento, Sicily, in the 5th century B.C. Legend records his death in Etna, but differs as to the motivation for his suicide: some sources suggest he jumped as a gesture of defiance in the face of earthly tyranny, but others that he wished to be thought a god, by disappearing mysteriously. The latter possibility was, however, ruled out when unfortunately one of his sandals was thrown up by the volcano, thereby revealing the circumstances of his death.

1. Volpi, op. cit., cat. 316

2. Mahoney, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 683 -687, 80.1-80.11, reproduced vol. II

3. Mahoney, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 688-690, 80.13-80-15, reproduced vol. II