Giuseppe Maria Crespi, called lo Spagnuolo (Bologna 1665-1747)

Mira Pajes Merriman (loc. cit.) dates this large nocturnal scene to c. 1730, noting that it relates stylistically to a group of paintings from this period including Jupiter among the Corybantes (formerly in the Thesiger collection, London) and two Pastoral Scenes in the Longhi collection, Florence. She further notes that the Drunken Silenus group at right develops an earlier composition by Crespi of c. 1690-95 in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna. The attribution to Giuseppe Maria Crespi was confirmed by Roberto Longhi and Francesco Arcangeli at the time of the 1964 exhibition at the Palazzo Reale in Milan.