(Leonessa, Rieti, circa 1600–1644 Rome)
Saint Martha taming the Tarasque
oil on canvas, 101.5 x 74.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
possibly Ruffo della Scaletta collection, Messina;
Private European collection;
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Gianni Papi for suggesting the attribution on the basis of a photograph and for his help in cataloguing the present lot.

Bartolomeo Mendozzi, also known as the Master of the Incredulity of Saint Thomas, was active in Rome during the second and third decades of the seventeenth century and was one of Caravaggio’s accomplished followers, alongside artists such as Bartolomeo Manfredi, Nicolas Tournier, Valentin de Boulogne and Cecco del Caravaggio.

The master’s moniker was formulated in 1997 on the basis of the Incredulity of Saint Thomas conserved in the Palazzo Valentini in Rome, around which an initial nucleus of stylistically similar works was formed (see G. Papi, Il Maestro dell’Incredulità di San Tommaso, in: Arte Cristiana, no. 779, 1997, pp. 121-130). Subsequently Papi made further additions to the master’s corpus of work such as the Card players in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (inv. no. 408), and those of the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome (see G. Papi, Il genio degli anonimi. Maestri caravaggeschi a Roma e a Napoli, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2005).

Francesca Curti identified the master with the painter Bartolomeo Mendozzi, a native of Leonessa in northern Lazio who was probably a pupil of Bartolomeo Manfredi (1582–1622), and who gained important patrons such as Vincenzo Giustiniani and the Dukes of Savoy (see F. Curti, in: La luce e i silenzi. Orazio Gentileschi e la pittura caravaggesca nelle Marche del Seicento, exhibition catalogue, ed. by A. M. Ambrosini, A. Delpriori, Ancona 2019, pp. 260-263).

Papi dates this work to the artist’s maturity, around the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth decade of the seventeenth century. This work can be compared to paintings of the same period such as the Shepherds making music in the Circolo degli Ufficiali di Presidio, Turin, the Salomè receiving the head of the Baptist in the Museo di Varallo, and the Holy Family in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes.

The subject of the present painting is Saint Martha. The story of the saint taming a monster, called the Tarasque, is narrated in the Golden Legend by Jacopo da Varazze. Martha of Bethany, together with Mary Magdalene and Lazarus, arrived in Provenance in 48 A.D. to spread Christianity. According to tradition, the group separated, and Martha headed towards the Camargue, where a monster, the Tarasque, which was half beast and half fish, terrorised the population. The monster was about to devour a man when the saint, armed with holy water and prayer, managed to subdue it and make it harmless. As a result, the Tarasque became a symbol of paganism subdued by the Christianity.