Pietro de Muttoni, called Pietro della Vecchia (Venice 1602/3-1678)

Della Vecchia developed a highly individual style that assimilated influences from Padovanino, under whom he studied, from the contrastingly Caravaggesque Carlo Saraceni, and from the Genoese born Bernardo Strozzi. This small panel in which the principal figures are placed close to the picture plane, in a landscape that rapidly drops away, can be compared with Della Vecchia's Battle between warriors, in a private collection (see B. Aikema, Pietro della Vecchia and the heritage of the Renaissance in Venice, Florence, 1990, p. 144, no. 183, fig. 49).