BENEDETTO LUTI (FLORENCE 1666-1724 ROME)

In 1692, soon after his arrival in Rome from Florence, Benedetto Luti presented at the annual art exhibition held in San Bartolomeo dei Bergamaschi, the monumental painting with God cursing Cain after the murder of Abel now at Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire (inv. KED / P / 155; see Maffeis, op. cit., I.6.). The painting was received with great enthusiasm and quickly established the artist’s reputation in Rome. At least five drawings and one engraving (by Giuseppe Wagner and based on a drawing by Giovanni Battista Cipriani) reproducing the full composition exist, attesting to the fame of Luti’s invention. All of the drawings are copies after the painting (for a summary see U.V. Fischer Pace, Italian Drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings, Statens Museum for Kunst. Roman Drawings before 1800, Copenhagen, 2014, p. 172, under no. 105, and Maffeis, op. cit., under I.6.). The present sheet, with its high degree of finish and its stylistic qualities, can be considered an autograph preparatory modello for the final painting.