Jan 31, 2019

Sotheby's

May 22, 2018

Sotheby's

Feb 1, 2018

Sotheby's

Feb 1, 2018

Sotheby's

Jan 26, 2017

Sotheby's

Jul 29, 2016

Kunstauktionshaus Schlosser

May 26, 2016

Sotheby's

May 26, 2016

Sotheby's

This powerful depiction of the victorious young David was painted in circa 1627 for Cardinal Francesco Barberini, who paid 15 scudi for the work. It has not been offered at auction since 1991. Its presumed pendant, also painted for the Barberini family, is the Sampson which today hangs in the Cleveland Museum of Art.1 Both paintings were previously extended along the lower edge and the present work was inscribed with the number '90', in the characteristic nineteenth-century Barberini inventory brush (see Mojana, under Literature, for an image of the canvas with extensions). Around the same period Valentin completed his monumental Allegory of Italy, which was also commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Barberini.2 Mojana (see Literature) specifically compares the careful delineation of the physiognomy of the present David and the half-open hand with the Portrait of Raffaello Menicucci in the Indianapolis Museum of Art.3 A very similar severed head can be found in the Judith with the Head of Holofernes, in the Augustinian Museum in Toulouse.4 1. Mojana, pp. 166-67, cat. no. 56, reproduced.2. Ibid., pp. 150-51, cat. no. 49, reproduced.3. Ibid., pp. 126-27, cat. no. 37, reproduced.4. Ibid., pp. 164-65, cat. no. 55, reproduced.

May 3, 2016

Cambi Casa d'Aste

Apr 16, 2016

Meeting Art