PAOLO DE MATTEIS (SALERNO 1662-1728 NAPLES)

According to Genesis 24:11-22, the aged patriarch Abraham wanted a wife for his son Isaac and sent his servant Eliezer to his homeland in Mesopotamia to find a suitable woman. Exhausted by his long journey, Eliezer paused at a well and prayed for guidance, and there discovered Rebecca, who offered water to the old man and his camels. Eliezer recognized Rebecca as the bride he sought, and she then set off for her new life in Canaan, as is illustrated in the present work.

Burton Fredericksen in 1972 (loc. cit.) listed the painting as Luca Giordano’s prime version of the composition, though Oreste Ferrari and Guisseppe Scavizzi in 1992 (loc. cit.) rejected its primacy. Several versions by Giordano are known, including a copper in the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, and a smaller version in the Pinacoteca Provinciale, Bari, as well as other examples in Braunschweig and formerly in the Brass collection, Venice. However, as early as 1972, the attribution of the present work to Giordano was in question, with Fredericksen reporting Zeri’s oral opinion that the canvas could be a copy after Giordano by Francesco Solimena. The attribution to Paolo de Matteis, an accomplished artist active one generation later than Giordano, was first proposed when the Getty Museum deaccessioned the work in 1992 (loc. cit.). Wholly convincing, the attribution has subsequently been widely accepted, with the work most recently appearing in Anna Della Ragione’s 2015 volume on De Matteis (loc. cit.).

Paolo De Matteis repeated Giordano’s compositions on other occasions, including a signed and dated Triumph of David from 1714 based on Giordano’s original from around 1686 (the former was sold Christie’s, Rome, 14 December 2004, lot 611, and for the latter, now in Temple Newsam House, Leeds, see O. Ferrari and G. Scavizzi, op. cit., I, p. 319, no. A417; II, p. 696, fig. 548). The carefully described and rounded faces of the figures in the present work are exemplary of De Matteis’ hand, while his soft modelling and luminosity are much in line with the eighteenth-century taste for a polished and refined aesthetic, marking a move away from Giordano’s more rapid, bravura mode of handling.