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Artist or Maker: Circle of Salvator Rosa (Arenella 1615-1673 Rome)
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Provenance: with J. & W. Vokins, London.
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Literature: Possibly 1851 Inventory, Large Drawing Room, '14 Paintings - £75.0.0'
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Notes: Salvator Rosa, born in Arenella, near Naples, in 1615 was one of the most original artists and extravagant personalities of the 17th Century, as well as an important satirical poet. He first studied painting in Naples with his brother-in-law Francesco Fracanzano, then possibly with Jusepe de Ribera, and finally with Aniello Falcone, from whom he derived an interest in genre and battle scenes.
Following his major commission for a battle scene from Monsignor Neri, the new papal ambassador to Louis XIV in 1652, for which he charged the staggering sum of 600 scudi. Rosa was only willing to paint battle scenes for the most important patrons. At this point in his career Rosa was striving hard to be accepted as a history painter, distancing himself somewhat from the lower echelons in the hierarchy of genres (he was also an extremely accomplished landscape painter). An immensely ambitious man, Rosa also had a fiery temper. When asked by Giovanni Battista Ricciardi to paint a battle scene, for a friend, he was told, 'I think you know how repugnant I find this sort of painting, even though it is my home ground for beating any painter that wants to attack me. Besides, the job involves some extremely hard work... …He should know that I've more or less vowed not to paint this sort of picture unless I am paid the price of a Raphael or a Titian' (quoted in J. Scot, Salvator Rosa, His Life and Times, New Haven and London, 1995, p. 100). Such comments clearly reveal the extent of Rosa's ambition to be regarded on a par with the most prestigious painters of the Renaissance.
Despite the artist's avowed antipathy for battle scenes, it was a genre in which he clearly excelled. The chaos of cavalry skirmishes, normally, as here, between Christians and Turks, provided an opportunity to depict writhing horses, dead bodies and intense combat, often set against extensive landscapes all in the same dramatic composition.
We are grateful to Professor N. Spinosa for confirming the attribution on the basis of photographs and written communication (19 March 2008)
