(Bologna 1577–1668)
The Finding of Moses,
oil on canvas, 108.5 x 147 cm, framed

Provenance:
possibly, Bonfiglioli collection, Bologna, 1757 (with its pendant Joseph sold by his brothers);
possibly, Angelo Landi collection, Bologna, 1834;
Private collection, France;
art market, France;
where acquired by the present owner

Literature:
possibly, G. Campori, Raccolta di cataloghi ed Inventarii Inediti di Quadri, Statue, Disegni, Bronzi…, Modena 1870, p. 617;
possibly, A. Emiliani, Le collezioni d’arte della Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna. I dipinti, Bologna 1972, p. 56, no. 66, not illustrated;
possibly, M. Pirondini/E. Negro/N. Roio/E. Monducci, Alessandro Tiarini, Florence 2000, p. 315 no. 55, p. 319 no. 113, not illustrated (under ‘opere perdute’);
possibly, D. Benati, Alessandro Tiarini: l’opera pittorica completa e i disegni, Milan 2002, vol. II, p. 189, no. 12, 13, not illustrated (under ‘opere perdute’);
D. Benati, Un pittore sui due versanti dell’appennino: percorsi di Alessandro Tiarini, in: Alessandro Tiarini (1577–1668). Quadri della Montagna Bolognese, Porretta Terme 2015, p. 7, illustrated p. 76 tav. 11 (as Alessandro Tiarini)

Benati proposed identifying this painting with the Finding of Moses cited as a work by Tiarini in the inventory of 1757 of the Bonfiglioli collection, Bologna, which had as its companion a Joseph sold to the merchants that as yet remains untraced. According to Benati, the present painting could also be that documented in the collection of Angelo Landi, that was exhibited in 1834 under the portico of the church of Santa Lucia in Bologna, on the occasion of the ten-year Eucharistic of the parish of San Giovanni in Monte (see Emiliani in literature).

This large and elegant canvas is distinguished by its original pallet and the theatricality of the composition. The features of the figures are rendered with intense realism, as they are in the Fall of Troy in the Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Barberini, Rome (inv. no. 1200160954). The present work has been dated to the early period of Tiarini’s career, after his sojourn in Florence and before his return to Bologna in 1606–1607, when he was to develop his understanding of the example of the Carracci, in the light of the teachings he received from Passignano in Florence. The bathers on the left side of the canvas especially recall those by Passignano in the Bathers at San Nicolò in a private collection (Sotheby’s, New York, 25 January 2017, lot 36).

Alessandro Tiarini was apprenticed in Bologna to Prospero Fontana and Bartolomeo Cesi, and at the start of the seventeenth century he moved to Florence where he collaborated with Passignano before returning to his native city where he was to remain for most of the rest of his life. His paintings reveal how he absorbed the influence of the great Emilian masters, such as Guercino, from whom he derived a certain manner of rendering contrasting light, and above all the Carracci, from whom he learnt certain qualities of realism and intense drama.