GIUSEPPE BARTOLOMEO CHIARI (LUCCA OR ROME 1654-1727 ROME)

A study for the picture at Burghley House which Chiari painted in 1686/1687 for Jacopo Montinioni, the treasurer to Pope Innocent XII (see Brigstocke and Somerville, op. cit., no. 8). It was later bought by the 5th Earl of Exeter on his Grand Tour and it appears in an inventory at Burghley House from 1738. Lord Exeter was an important patron to a number of artists and his account books give a rare insight into collecting from this period (see E. Waterhouse, 'A note on British Collecting of Italian Pictures in the Later Seventeenth Century', The Burlington Magazine, 1960, CII, pp. 54-58). Another drawing for this composition, presumably earlier than the present one as it is less close to the picture, is in the Art Institute of Chicago (see B. Kerber, 'Giuseppe Chiari, The Art Bulletin, 1968, L, figs. 2 and 3).