Pier Francesco Mola e la pittura di storia: il caso delle tele monumental dell'Accademia d'Arte di San Pietroburgo
- Autores: Federico Fischetti
- Localización: Prospettiva: rivista di storia dell'arte antica e moderna, ISSN 0394-0802, Nº. 139-140, 2010, págs. 167-180
- Idioma: italiano
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Resumen
Two large paintings, attributed to Pier Francesco Mola since the early eighteenth century, are commented on and published in color for the first time. Having been ignored up until today, despite substantial literature on this artist, they offer the chance to reflect on some of the lesser known aspects of Mola’s career. Due to their size and subject, these works raise complex problems and offer a new dimension to the repertory of an artist who is still subject to stereotyped criticism and awaits satisfactory cataloguing. The present study is an occasion to reflect on the formation of Mola and Cavalier d’Arpino’s pupil and to consider his unique approach to monumental history painting as an alternative to the most popular currents in Baroque Rome. The patron of the two paintings is unknown but their story begins in the London collection of Grinling Gibbons (of which is here presented an unpublished sales catalogue) and continues with subsequent transfers to the Walpole collection, and finally to the collection of Catherine II in St. Petersburg. Pending a desiderable restoration, attribution to Mola can be sustained only for the high quality work representing ‘Horace Coclite’. Its counterpart is proposes here as a workshop run mostly by the young Giovan Battista Pace. For both works, we support a date between 1664 and 1665.
