(Rome 1638–1721)
The Triumph of Galatea,
oil on canvas, 157.5 x 201 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

The composition shows Galatea on a shell, carried in triumph by sea creatures including dolphins, tritons and nereids with putti. Polyphemus is seated on a rock, trying to gain the attention of the beautiful nymph with the sound of his flute. The present composition shows similarities to Luigi Garzi’s Galetea and Polyphemus, conserved in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (inv. no. 464, see A. Agresti, Il ritrovato paesaggio con Agar e Ismaele della collezione Orsini. Aggiunte al catalogo di Pietro Bianchi, rettifiche attributive in favore di Giuseppe Bottani, Antonio Cavallucci, Luigi Garzi, in: Studio di Storia dell’arte, 25, 2014, pp. 244–246), especially evident in the twisted figure of Polyphemus.

Garzi was one of the main exponents of Classicism in late seventeenth-century Roman painting. He trained in the workshop of Salomon Beckereel, known as Salomon Boccali (see Pascoli, Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti moderni, Rome 1736, p. 236), and later moved to the workshop of Andrea Sacchi, where he devoted himself to the study of works by Raphael, Domenichino and Nicolas Poussin, moving towards a classicist style of painting. Garzi was appointed prince of the Accademia di San Luca in 1682, and during his career he received many commissions for Roman churches and palaces, including the frescoes on the vault of the church of the Santissime Stimmate di San Francesco, the canvas with the Allegoria della Fede for San Carlo al Corso, and the decoration of the Cybo chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo, evidence of the artist’s success in Rome.