Job op de mestvaalt door zijn vrouw bezocht

After Giovanni Battista Franco

459

Piety consoling an old man

Pen and brown ink. Framing line (partly trimmed) in pencil. Irregularly cut.

180 x 168 mm.

CHAIN LINES: 26-28 mm (v).

Inscribed at bottom: Polidor . f (pen and brown ink).

PROVENANCE: Christina of Sweden; Azzolini; Odescalchi; acquired in 1790 (L. 2392).

Inv. Libro I, c. 50 (`Una figura di donna in piedi con un vecchio che la sta pregando'); inv. 1854: ? M 88 (after Polidoro, `eene allegorie'); inv. 1864: I 16 (Polidoro).

INV. NO.: B 27.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Frerichs, 1981, p. 36, under no. 68; Birke and Kertész, II, p. 834, under inv. 1568; Montanari, 1995, p. 74; Van der Sman, exh. Florence-Amsterdam, 1995-1996, p. 136, under no. 50.


The old attribution was to Polidoro. This is a copy after the circular fresco of Pietas (sometimes identified as Job on the dungheap visited by his wife) that was painted by Battista Franco in 1560-1561 on the vault of the Grimani Chapel in San Francesco della Vigna, Venice, or after a lost preliminary study for it (Rearick, 1958, fig. 10 o). An engraving after the scene, in reverse, is attributed by Bartsch to Franco himself (B XVI, p. 138, no. 58).