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

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

several fundamental studies and books,'

1 and Olsewszki has also published and analysed the inventories of the cardinal's priceless collection.'

6 Although Girolamo Troppa's name does not figure in the sources published by them, the fact that Corelli showed a liking lor Troppa's works, and that the Lucretia betrays the direct influence of Trevisani's art, may indirectly prove that Troppa may also have come into close contact with Ottoboni and the artists who associated with him, in addition to the above-mentioned patrons. This supposition could indeed be justified by a drawing of unknown destination with the rendition of the glory of the Ottoboni family (Berlin, Kunstbibliothek), which, however, at the moment is only dubiously attributed to Troppa.'

7 The letter and the cited inventories not only contribute to the hypothetical reconstruction of Troppa's œuvre, but also prove that the artist won a reputation not only with his monumental works executed on churches and palaces, which facet of his activity was stressed in early literature, but that he was also a fashionable painter of quadri da stanza, which paintings will surely constitute a considerable portion of his œuvre in a future monograph. The sources seem to query Vittorio Casale's assessment, according to which Troppa's late period is only characterized by unskilful borrowings from Maratta,'

8 and Stella Rudolph's statement that "...La sua carriera si protrasse addirittura per decenni oltre la fase più cretiva...una quantité di materiali indicativi dell'indefessa attività di Troppa in quegli anni eppure si tratta di una produzione in gran parte di immagini sacre, destinate alia provincia ..."'

y The inventories are also important documents of the Troppa-research because they prove that the artist had an even richer repertory of genres than his hitherto known œuvre shows.

40 The first Sforza-Cesarini list mentions autonomous landscapes, harbour scenes (Un paese con dot figure, ...del Troppa, in piccolo; Un paesetto di Girolamo Troppi del gusto del Mola; Doi marine di Girolamo Troppa bislunghe),*

1 of which types

—similarly to the bambocciata in the Corelli-inventory

—not a single piece has been published so far. Although their identification does not seem possible at the moment,

4- they cast light on the fact that some further chapters of Troppa's art still await exploration, and they may designate a new line for research on style. Zsuzsanna Dobos is curator of seventeenth and eighteenth century Italian paintings at the Old Masters' Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.