(Venice 1614–1687)
The Centaur Nessus attempting to abduct Deianira, oil on canvas, 114 x 100 cm, framed

Provenance: Princes de la Trémoille, Ducs de Thouars, Château de Serrant, Loire; by inheritance to the Princes de Merode.

Certificate: Ugo Ruggeri (author of the catalogue raisonné on Pietro Liberi).

The present painting, which was only recently rediscovered in an old princely collection, constitutes an important addition to the Pietro Liberi’s oeuvre. The artist numbers among the great classicist painters of the Venetian Baroque. Trained in the workshop of Padovanino, he spent several years travelling and campaigning across the eastern Mediterranean Sea by order of Venetian merchants and probably also as a mercenary. In 1632-33 he was held captive by Berber pirates in Tunis. In 1638 Liberi arrived in Rome, where he spent two years studying the works of Michelangelo and Raphael. Also, the works of the Carracci, Pietro da Cortona, and, of course, Guido Reni had a considerable impact on his art. Liberi’s first surviving work in Siena betrays his orientation towards the Romano-Bolognese High Baroque informed by the classical tradition. The present painting reveals the influence the powerful Mannerist figurative style of Michelangelo’s late period exercised on Liberi’s works and shows the colour scheme used by his Venetian contemporaries.

Provenance: Princes de la Trémoille, Ducs de Thouars, Château de Serrant, Loire; by inheritance to the Princes de Merode. Certificate: Ugo Ruggeri (author of the catalogue raisonné on Pietro Liberi). The present painting, which was only recently redisc