A Bacchanal with a company feasting and making music,
oil on canvas, 142 x 217 cm, framed

The present composition exists in another variant, which was published as Gregorio Preti and sold in these rooms on the 4th of October 2006 as lot 16 (for hammer price € 100,000) (see: Gregorio Preti da Taverna a Roma, 1603-1672, ed. by Carlo Carlino, exhibition catalogue, Reggio Calabria, 2003, p. 114, fig. 33). The present painting is clearly by a different hand and, whilst it is at least as accomplished as the painting published as Preti, it has so far eluded a convincing attribution. Nicola Spinosa has identified a likely pendant in a Neapolitan private collection which he considers to be possibly be by the same hand, that carries a traditional attribution as ‘Luca Giordano imitating Rubens’ (oil on canvas, 143 x 220 cm, fig. 1).

An attribution to the young Jan van Bijlert has been suggested. His activity in Italy remains largely unrecorded, as there are very few documented paintings that can be traced to Bijlerts Roman sojourn. There are many compositional similarities in the present paintings with later works by Bijlert, but also with those of other foreign artists active in Rome at that time. A drawing attributed to Jan van Bijlert (Bacchus among the Bentvueghels, 1623, Museum Boymans-Van Beuningen, Rotterdam), could be employed to support such an attribution. The nature of the congregations of northern artists in Rome may have been motivation enough to paint several versions of a bacchantic scene. ‘The Bentvueghels were naturalistic painters with a reputation for rowdiness, excessive drinking, defiance of the proponents of “academic” art, and even armed fights. They made sacrilegious references to Christian practices, such as baptism and communion. These artists depicted themselves and their rowdy activities as well as other genre subjects in a variety of ways. The setting was often a tavern, and loose women could be included. In some works, as in life, conventions from religious paintings and other serious genres were parodied, and classically robed figures romped among those in contemporary dress’ (see: E. Umberger, Velázquez and Naturalism I: Interpreting ‘Los Borrachos’, in: Anthropology and Aesthetics, 24/Autumn 1993, pp. 21–43).

An explanation of the fact that three versions of a very similar subject exist has been brought forward. It suggests that these might be the results of an artistic contest within the thriving Bentvueghel community in Rome. Finally, it should be noted that there are similarities between the present painting and Velazquez’s famous Bacchanal (Los Borrachos, 1628-1629, Museo del Prado, Madrid). The present painting probably exemplifies a genre very popular among the foreign Caravaggists in Rome, and Velazquez’s unique interpretation is the result of an intensified artistic interaction between Madrid and the Eternal City in the mid 1620s (for a discussion on Velazquez’s possible Bentvueghel inspiration, see:
E. Umberger, op. cit., p. 30-31).