Lot 1286 Dα

The present work depicts the figures of the Roman goddess Venus mourning for her lover Adonis, who was killed whilst out hunting, in a panoramic landscape. The heavily foreshortened figure of Adonis is placed close to the lower edge of the painting, whilst Venus grips his hand and looks plaintively up towards the sky. Several putti and the figures of the Three Graces hover over the scene, their dramatic gestures emphasising its pathos. The two hunting dogs of the slain Adonis sit motionlessly in the lower left corner of the work.

Marcantonio Franceschini, the artist who painted this mythological story derived from Ovid, was among the most important painters in Bologna in the late 17th and early 18th century. He was taught to paint under Giovanni Maria Galli Bibiena and worked for a short period in the studio of Carlo Cignani. He then went on to become an independent artist, working in several cities throughout Italy, including Rome, where he designed the mosaics of the choir of St Peter's; Genoa, where he painted for the Palazzo Ducale; and especially Bologna. He also received numerous commissions from foreign rulers, but Franceschini rarely took up these offers. One exception was Prince Johann Adam Andreas of Liechtenstein, for whom the artist painted numerous works.

The majority of Franceschini's works are listed in the artist's recently published invoice records (Dwight C. Miller und Fabio Chiodini: Il Libro dei conti di Marcantonio Franceschini, Bentivoglio 2014). These include a work described as “un quadrone grande con Venere e le tre Grazie con Amori che piangono Adone morto” which Fabio Chiodini does not equate to the present image in his expertise because this work would probably not have been described as a “quadrone grande”. Another version of this composition which differs from it in only a few details was housed in the Neues Palais and later in Rheinsberg Palace as of July 1942 (see: Zerstört Entführt Verschollen. Die Verluste der preußischen Schlösser im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Potsdam 2004, p. 170, illus. p. 171).

Fabio Chiodini dates the present work to Franceschini's mature phase around 1721/22 (“tarda maturità del pittore”) and compares it to his “Death of Abel” in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna, which was painted in 1723.