Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei (Budapest, 2007)
ZSUZSANNA DOBOS: New Additions to the Art and Research of Girolamo Troppa
NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ART AND RESEARCH OF GIROLAMO TROPPA ZSUZSANNA DOBOS "For Teréz Gerszi on occasion of her 80th birthday" In the past few decades serious efforts have been made to perform comprehensive research on the vast and multi-faceted material of Roman Baroque art, to explore its terra incognitas. Exhibitions and publications presenting the artistic life, the outstanding patrons and collections of the period have significantly increased lately. 1 In parallel to this, corpus volumes, catalogues, monographs and studies which provide an increasingly detailed picture of the art of not only the foremost painters (Pietro da Cortona, Andrea Sacchi, Pier Francesco Mola, Carlo Maratta, Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Francesco Trevisani among others), but also ol the hundreds ol minor artists following in their wake, have continuously been released. 2 A versatile artistic personality reacting to the main stylistic trends in an individual way, Girolamo Troppa (Rocchette in Sabina 1637 - Rome c. 1710), emerged from the mists of anonymity in the 1970s and 1980s thanks to the research work of Stella Rudolph, Andrea Busiri Vici and Vittorio Casale. 3 More recently, Erich Schleier has contributed to the Troppa-research with several essential publications and communications. 4 The artist's large number of signed works, including both paintings and drawings, have formed a firm basis for the initial reconstruction of Troppa's œuvre. These also include several in situ altarpieces and fresco decorations in the churches and palaces of Rome, Lazio and Umbria, which also demonstrate his itinerario. The fact that his œuvre, which numbers around seventy pieces, put together by Giancarlo Sestieri in 1994,' has been growing with more and more w r orks every year, suggests in itself that Troppa must have been one of the most prolific painters of the Roman late Baroque period, but just how dazzling the pace at which he worked must have been, is well illustrated by the largesize (235x166 cm), hitherto unpublished Saint Jerome in the Wilderness in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, which bears the inscription: OPERA D.UN GIORNO DEL CAVALIER TROPPA. 6
