(Bruxelles 1642–1680 Venice)
Piscina probatica,
oil on canvas, 69 x 116.5 cm, unframed

Provenance:
Collection of Theodor von Brücke (1853–1918), Vienna;
Private European collection

We are grateful to Mauro Lucco for his help in cataloguing the present painting.

The present composition derives from the Piscina Probatica (or The Probatic Pool) by Jacopo Tintoretto (1518–1594) of 1559, made for the Church of San Rocco, Venice.

Lefèvre also executed a drawing offered at Christie’s, London (12 December 1996, lot 93), of the same subject as the present painting. This was the preparatory drawing for an engraving that appeared in the collection Opera Selectiora by Lefèvre. This etching is in the library of the Museo Correr, Venice, and is inscribed: ‘Iacobus Robusti. Dictus Tintorettus In Et Pinx. / V. lefebre del. Et sculp. / J. Van Campen F. Venetijs’ (see U. Ruggeri, Valentin Lefèvre 1637-1677, Reggio Emilia 2001, pp. 137-226). The ionic capitals and the projecting brackets appear in the engraving as do the dangling legs of the ailing man at lower left.

Lefèvre made study-copies after the works of sixteenth-century Venetian painters, and especially those of Paulo Veronese and Tintoretto. Lefèvre also executed another version of the Piscina probatica by Tintoretto, although this reveals numerous variant details (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Poitiers, inv. no. 948.52.1).