
Poppy Harvey-Jones
Head of Sale
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Sold for £52,500 inc. premium
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Head of Sale
Provenance
Probably the Collection of Don Antonio Ruffo, Prince of Scaletta by 25 July 1663 (un quadro di Salvator Rosa di palmi 5 jn quadro conserto di dui satiri, e tre ninfe figure di tre palmi)
Sale, Sotheby's, London, 18 October 1989, lot 115
Sale, Sotheby's, London, 17 April 1991, lot 170
Sale, Phillips, London, 15 December 1998, lot 28 (the Property of a gentleman)
Literature
Vita e Opere di Salvator Rosa: Pittura, Poeta, Incisore, con Poesie e Documenti Inediti del Dr. Leandro Ozzola, Strasbourg, 1908, p. 413
C. Volpi, Salvator Rosa (1615-1673), "pittore famoso", Rome, 2014, p. 553, cat. no. 258, ill. p. 553
The present canvas is mentioned along with two others as being for sale in Salvator Rosa's workshop in a letter from Messina by a certain Giuseppe de Rosis to Don Antonio Ruffo, date 2 June 1663:
'Rosa told me that he had two extremely beautiful pictures and of the very best to come out of his hands that are of figures. I told him that he should write a note to me about them, and he therefore gave me the attached note: For Sale a picture of 5 palms, by 5 palms, in which I have painted some Satyrs Carousing with Maidens, the figures measure 3 palms' (see Volpi, p. 553).
The presence of this work in Rosa's studio in 1663 would tend to support the stylistic evidence that it forms part of the Master's late oeuvre.