Giovanni Battista de Cavalieri (1525-1601)

The depiction of the Massacre of the Innocents has traditionally also been associated with Baccio Bandinelli (see previous lot). In 1999, after the emergence of an impression of the present, very rare first state in the Bibliothèque National, Suzanne Boorsch interpreted the inscription Jo Baptista de Cavalle / ris Lagerinus incideb. / in AEdibus Salvianis. / .M.D.LXI. / ROMAE. as referring to the Florentine painter Francesco Salviati (Print Quarterly, 1999, vol. XVI, no. 3, p. 266f.). In the discussion following the discovery of this previously undescribed state however Michael Bury argued that the inscription related to the printer and publisher Ippolito Salviani, in whose workshop the engraving was presumably printed; a view then also shared by Boorsch (Print Quarterly, 2000, vol. XVII, no. 2, p.190). The question of the attribution of the composition hence remains uncertain.