(Jativa 1591–1652 Naples)
Christ among the Scholars,
oil on canvas, 127.5 x 153.5 cm, framed

Provenance;
Private collection, Caltanissetta

Literature:
N. Spinosa, Ribera, Naples, 2006, p. 267, under A31 (with incorrect dimensions 139 x 163 and the composition is not reversed)

The present painting’s composition is identical to that of a large-scale painting by Ribera (Sotheby’s, London, 5 July 2006, lot 49, cf. N. Spinosa, Ribera, Naples, 2006, p. 267, A31) which Spinosa identifies as the prototype for this pictorial invention, dating it to the painter’s early period around 1617-1618. Variations of the same subject matter in which the scene appears in the reverse and which are by the hands of various assistants copying their master are conserved in Vienna, Glasgow, Chartres, and in the Galleria Corsini in Rome.

Spinosa compares the present compostion to the Raising of Lazarus (Museo del Prado). Both of these crowded scenes reveal stylistic elements borrowed from Caravaggio: while the protagonists are rendered in half-shadow, numerous less important figures comment on the scene in the foreground. The naturalistic still life with scrolls and books in the right foreground is reminiscent of that in the composition of Saints Peter and Paul in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg.