Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei (Budapest, 2007)

ZSUZSANNA DOBOS: New Additions to the Art and Research of Girolamo Troppa

"[3. 4.] Due quadri di tela da Imperatore per traverso uno del Troppa rappres. Bambocciate e l'altro di opera di Monsu Bernardo rapp. II simile [32.] Un quadro da sette e cinque p. [palmi] traverso rappr. Diana e Bacco con altre ninfe, opera del Troppa [63. 64.] Due mezze figure tela da tre palmi rappr. uno Cleopatra e l'altro Lucretia." Although it cannot be completely ruled out that in some iconographical correlation Diana and Bacchus would appear together in a late Baroque painting, their common representation did not play a part in the traditional themes. It seems more probable that the maker of the inventory wrongly defined the participants of the mythological scene, more probably the identity of the heroine, and the subject matter of the composition may have been the popular theme of Ariadne and Bacchus. Developing the thought further, it can be assumed that the painting described in the inventory may be identical with the above-mentioned picture in the Gemäldegalerie, Kassel, which hypothesis can also be backed up by the identical dimensions of the two works.

33 From among the two half-length portraits of the two antique heroines, the Cleopatra still remains untraced, but the Lucretia can probably be identified with the signed picture auctioned olf at Sotheby's, London, in 1991 (fig. 10).

34 The painting deserves attention not only from the aspect of provenance but also from that of style. As we have seen, Troppa in a particular work or period strived to follow the style of various leading masters of the age. In this painting Lucretia's facial type, the slightly sentimental mood of her heavenward gaze, the soft modelling of the face and the hands undoubtedly betray the influence of Francesco Trevisani, whose name has not thus far been proposed with regard to the stylistic changes in Troppa's art. Trevisani, who was born in Capodistria, moved to Rome at an early age in 1678, where he was initially employed by Flavio Chigi, and then later, from the end of the 1690s, by Cardinal Ottoboni. The art patronage of Ottoboni has been discussed by Haskell and Olsewszki in GIROLAMO TROPPA. LUC AUCTIONED AT SOTHEBY'S, LONDON, DECEMBER 10 RET1A. II. 1991