(Verona 1707–1762 St. Petersburg)
The Finding of Moses,
oil on canvas, 75 x 100 cm, framed

Provenance:
From the family of the artist and thence by descent to the present owner

The present painting reflects the influence of Bolognese art on Rotari’s production: the classical formal grace of the figures, the landscape setting and the features of the female figures reveal the impact of Domenichino’s work that Rotari saw in Rome. The poses and type of the figures closely resemble those in religious work of Rotari´s italian period such as San Ludovico da Tolosa distribuisce le elemosine (Padova, Biblioteca del Santo, 1741) and the Nativity of Mary (Padova, Musei Civici) (see M. Polazzo, Pietro Rotari: pittore veronese del Settecento (1707–1762), 1990, no. 70 p. 50 and no. 71, p. 51).

A possible related drawing of the head of a woman, is very similar to the Pharaoh’s daughter wearing a blue mantel standing on the left of the present painting(see Polazzo, op.cit., 1990, no. 51). Pietro Antonio Rotari first trained in his native Verona with Antonio Balestra; he then moved to Venice (1725-1727), Rome (1728-1731) and Naples (1731-1734), where he studied with Francesco Trevisani and Francesco Solimena, before returning to Verona to set up his own studio and school. There, he concentrated on the production of historical and religious paintings that were to bring him international fame. Influenced by the Roman and Bolognese tradition of classical painting, he developed his own style inspired by the works of artists as Guido Reni, Domenichino , Maratta and Sassoferrato. His “infatuation for the Bolognese classicism” gained him a lot of commissions in Parma, Modena and Guastalla (see L. Ievolella, Pietro Antonio Rotari in Emilia in “Verona illustrata”, 24.2011, pp. 149-157).

In 1750 Rotari travelled to Vienna, and then to Dresden in the service of Frederick Augustus III. By 1756 he became court painter to the Empress Elisabeth of Russia, daughter of Peter the Great, a position he held until his death. After Rotari’s sudden death, Catherine the Great bought more than three hundred of the artist’s ‘fancy pictures’ for the cabinet of ‘Muses and Graces’ at the Peterhof Palace, where small and large canvases are arranged in a careful pattern across the walls above and between intricately carved rococo doors and mirrors. The pictures that Catherine did not buy were returned to Rotari’s family in Verona, where they remained in the possession of his descendants such as the present painting.

The present composition is related to The Finding of Moses by Marcantonio Franceschini (formerly Liechtenstein collection) and an alternative attribution to Marcantonio Franceschini (Bologna 1648–1729) has been suggested for the present painting.