(Naples 1640–1709)
Adam and Eve with the Infants Cain and Abel,
oil on canvas, 133 x 178 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Christie’s, London, 10 November 1961, lot 159 (as Guercino);
Collection Anton Egger Friberger (?);
art market, Munich;
where acquired by present owner

We are grateful to Riccardo Lattuada for confirming the attribution of the present painting and for his help in cataloguing.

As a subject ‘The Family of Adam’ focuses on the moment after the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, when Adam is condemned to work in the fields so that: ‘From the sweat of your brow you will have bread to eat until you return to dust’ (Genesis 3: 17-24; 4: 1-2). In this painting we see Adam resting on a hoe in evening light, his expression is melancholy and a little puckered by exhaustion at the end of a long working day; Eve meanwhile holds the infants Cain and Able close to her.

The present painting repeats the palette, composition and physical types employed in an invention by Andrea Vaccaro (Naples, 1604-1670) which are here adapted a more linear and academic declination. All points of comparison however lead to an attribution to Nicola Vaccaro. The son of Andrea, Nicola Vaccaro was among the most significant painters active at Naples during the latter half of the seventeenth century and during the first decade of the eighteenth. His unsuccessful but intense interlude as the manager of the Teatro di San Bartolomeo brought him into the forefront of Neapolitan cultural life (see: M. Izzo, Nicola Vaccaro (1640-1709), un artista a Napoli tra Barocco e Arcadia, Todi 2009).

In the present painting, the figure of the child seen in profile is similar to that of the Infant Saint John the Baptist in the Holy Family with the Infant Saint John by Nicola Vaccaro formerly offered at Christie’s New York (26 January 2005, lot 234) and there are also parallels with the Christ Child appearing to Saint Anthony of Padua offered at Christie’s London (24 April 1998, lot 134, for which see respectively R. Lattuada, in: M. Izzo, Nicola Vaccaro, op. cit., p. 159, A9; Idem, p. 156, A5). Further comparisons amongst the works of Nicola Vaccaro are also possible if we observe the features of the putti as well as the principal figures of the Guardian Angel in the church of San Pietro ad Aram, Naples, in which – despite the poor legibility of the work owing to accumulated layers of grime and damage – it is evident that the drawing of the child is a variant of that used for the child in Eve’s arms in the present work (see M. Izzo, Nicola Vaccaro, op. cit., p. 158, A8).

Finally, the same style of smooth paint application that is more even and less dense than Andrea Vaccaro’s, and which characterises the present painting, is also found in the large altarpiece of Saint Martha in Glory in the church of Santa Marta in Gloria, Naples (see M. Izzo, Nicola Vaccaro, op. cit., p. 157-158, A7).

Each of the above mentioned works have been dated by Izzo and Lattuada to between 1660 and 1680 and of these, three also represent that transitional moment when the elderly master Andrea, passed on the management of his studio to his son, Nicola. The present painting also belongs to this very moment, while in terms of subject matter it connects with Nicola Vaccaro’s Adam and Eve in earthly Paradise (see R. Lattuada, in: M. Izzo, Nicola Vaccaro, op. cit., p. 154, A2).