(Lucca 1708–1787 Rome)
Apollo, Music and Geometry,
oil on canvas, 124 x 90 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Rome

Exhibited:
San Gimignano, Musei Civici di San Gimignano, L’ebbrezza di Noè: sedici artisti per San Gimignano, 6 June - 28 September 2003, pp. 124–127 (as Pompeo Batoni)

Literature:
V. Curzi, in: L’ebbrezza di Noè. Sedici artisti per San Gimignano, exhibition catalogue, M. Zattini (ed.), Cesena 2003, pp. 124–127 (as Pompeo Batoni);
E. P. Bowron, Pompeo Batoni: a complete catalogue of his paintings, Houston 2016, vol. 1, p. 47, cat. no. 40.O) (under ‘copies’)

The present painting relates to another version by Batoni which is signed and dated 1741, conserved in the Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti per l’Arte, on loan to the Castello di Rivoli, Turin. This painting forms a pair with another work by Batoni representing Painting, Sculpture and Architecture also conserved in the Castello di Rivoli. Both paintings were commissioned between 1740 and 1741 by Francesco Conti of Lucca, one of the artist’s earliest patrons.

In a letter of 13 January 1742 Pompeo Batoni described the subject of the painting as: Apollo is seen in the act of composing poetry while the two female figures, Music and Geometry, are shown listening (cfr. M. Ingendaay, ‘Posso vantarmi di avere un gran Protettore’: il carteggio tra Pompeo Batoni e il marchese Andrea Gerini, 1740–1748, in: Pompeo Batoni 1708–1787: l’Europa delle corti e il Grand Tour, Milan 2008, p. 381, no. 99).

Pompeo Batoni was one of the most celebrated painters of his day. The number of assistants employed in his studio was small and included Nathaniel Dance and Johann Gottlieb Puhlmann, as well as the painter’s sons Felice, Domenico and Romualdo. Versions of his compositions were produced in the studio under his supervision, and possibly with his cooperation. In 1756 one visitor to Batoni’s studio reported the presence of young assistants replicating works, under the master’s supervision (see E. P. Bowron, P. B. Kerber, Pompeo Batoni: prince of painters in Eighteenth-Century Rome, New Haven 2007, pp. 171–175).