Descrizione Lotto
JUSEPE DE RIBERA (Játiva 1591 – Naples 1652
) Plato
Oil on canvas, 128
x 102 cm Private
collection Please
request a condition report
Notes:
The painting is accompanied by an expert report by Prof. Nicola Spinosa (as Jusepe de Ribera)
. The report drawn up by Prof. Spinosa is reproduced below:
“[..] It is an autograph replica, with minimal variations in certain details and dimensions,
of the canvas (120 x 93 cm) signed and dated 1630 by Ribera, which, originating from the collections of the Monastery of San Lorenzo atEscorial and the Parisian collection of Lavaland de Roy, has been on display since 1911 at the Musée de Picardie in Amiens and has repeatedly been proposed as one of the ancient philosophers painted in a single series by Ribera. between 1629 and 1631, for the then Viceroy of Naples, the famous Duke of Alcalá, before passing partly to the Museo del Prado and partly to various North American and European museums or collections; in some cases, however, it was also replicated either by the Spanish artist himself or by his collaborators and copyists, including some from Naples (Spinosa 2066, p. 294, no. A86). In the canvases of this and other series, featuring subjects and compositional and stylistic approaches that are closely related, elements of a naturalist tradition are skilfully combined, such as the saints and philosophers painted by Ribera in Rome and Naples between 1614 and 1628: with results that significantly reflect a growing focus on an increasingly careful and sensitive pictorial rendering of moods and emotional reactions. Here, this attention and concrete, unaltered visual skill are also evident in certain compositions which, as in the case of the Plato under consideration here, was also painted, like the Amiens version, by the master himself, probably for another series featuring identical or similar subjects, painted immediately after the one commissioned by the Duke of Alcalá mentioned earlier.
Bibliographical reference:
N. Spinosa, Ribera. The Complete Works. Naples 2006 (Italian edition): Madrid (Spanish edition)[..]
Nicola Spinosa
