Resumen de Novità mantovane per Nicolò Musso
A new attribution to Nicolò Musso.
A double monogram, in the lower left corner of the canvas, allows us to reattribute a composition, representing 'Joseph and the wife of Potiphar' conserved at the Museo do Palazzo d'Arco in Mantua, from the school of Orazio Gentileschi to the small corpus of works by the Caravaggesques artist from Casale Monferrato, Nicolò Musso.
The painting, together with another version of the subject of unknown whereabouts discovered among the photographs of Federico Zeri, is proof of the relations that must have linked Musso to the court of the Gonzaga family, lords of Mantua and Monferrato, through the mediation of the chancellor Annibale Chieppio, whose collection constitutes the original nucleus of the museum of Piazza d'Arco. Thanks to XVIIth and XVIIIth century inventories, we can follow the movements of the work from the country residence to the city house of the Chieppo d'Arco family.
The work can be dated to the painter's Monferrato period after his return from Rome, between the 'Madonna of the Rosary' of San Domenico a Casale, completed in 1618, and the 'Annunciation' of Ticineto of 1622, presumably just before the decorative work in the rooms of the castle of Casale, assigned to Musso and to Giorgio Alberini around 1620 through ducal commission, possibly again through the mediation of the minister Chieppio.
