No.20 

Luca Giordano (Naples 1634 - 1705)
The Daughters of Cecrops Finding the Infant Erichthonius, oil on canvas, 76.5 x 133.5 cm, framed, (Wo)

Oreste Ferrari assigns the present painting to a group of works executed in the early 1660s. He directs attention to the close relationship with Venus and Mars in the Workshop of Vulcan, formerly in the Mahon Collection, London, and Homage to Rubens in the Prado. The subject of the daughters of Cecrops and Erichthonius is based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses (II, 552-565). Erichthonius was born in Athens with the legs of a snake. His mother put him into a basket and entrusted the daughters of Cecrops to take care of it, forbidding them to open it. The present composition depicts the moment when the curious daughters of Cecrops break their promise and open the basket to look at the monstrous child. The subject rarely occurs in art history. It was treated by Rubens in a painting now preserved in the Liechtenstein Collection, Vienna, which Giordano might have known through an engraving by Pieter Sompelen.
Provenance: European private collection
Exhibitions: Naples, Castel Sant’Elmo - Museo di Capodimonte, Luca Giordano 1634 - 1705, 3 March - 3 June 2001, no. 28; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Luca Giordano 1634 - 1705, 22 June - 7 October 2001, no. 28
Literature: O. Ferrari; G. Scavizzi, Luca Giordano, catalogue raisonné, Naples 1992, A94, p. 265,pl. XVIII; Luca Giordano 1634 - 1705, exhibition catalogue, Naples, pp. 132-33, no. 28; Luca Giordano 1634 - 1705, exhibition catalogue, Vienna, pp. 132-33, no. 28

estimate €120.000,- to €160.000,-

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