The Wedding Feast at Cana,
oil on canvas, 136 x 206 cm, framed

Provenance:
Gilberto Zabert Gallery, Turin, 1992;
Private European collection;
where acquired by the present owner

The Wedding Feast at Cana represents the miracle which Jesus performed by turning water-into-wine and it is here depicted in the style of a sumptuous feast, characteristic of 16th-century Venetian society; the sacred in the profane world.

Despite the quality of the execution of the present composition it has not, as yet, been possible to identify the artist. This work reflects the style of Paolo Veronese and his treatment of the subject the Wedding Feast at Cana, today in the Louvre, Paris which the present artist must have known. An attribution to Michele Damaskinos, has been suggested who was a leading representative of the Cretan School of painting that flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries, whilst Crete was under Venetian rule. He was a near-contemporary of the most celebrated painter from the area, El Greco, but although Damaskinos also went to Italy, he remained much closer to his roots stylistically. There is little information regarding the life of Damaskinos. He was born in Candia (today’s Herakleion). Damaskinos lived in Venice for several years and travelled extensively throughout Italy. He was a member of the Greek Brotherhood of Venice from 1577 to 1582, having been in Venice since 1574. He worked, together with Emmanuel Tzanes, for the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of San Giorgio dei Greci in Venice. In 1584 he returned to Greece and worked mainly in Crete and the Ionian islands.