Lot 144: DANIELE CRESPI (Busto Arsizio 1590-1630 Milan)

Salome with the head of Saint John the Baptist oil on canvas 541/4 x 42 in. (137.7 x 106.7 cm.) PROVENANCE Anon. Sale, Sotheby's, New York, 20 May 1993, lot 249, as Milanese School, early 17th Century. LITERATURE N. Ward Nielson, Daniele Crespi, Soncino, 1996, p. 66, no. 84 and p. 93, plate I. NOTES Ward Nielson ( loc. cit. ) records that the attribution of the present painting to Daniele Crespi was first suggested by Edoardo Testori. She suggests that on stylistic grounds it should probably be placed among the earliest known works by the artist -- the profiles of Salome and the soldier resemble those of the angels in the altarpiece, executed in 1619, in the Chapel of Saint Antony Abbott in the church of S. Vittore al Corpo, Milan. She further notes the existence of a sheet of related drawings in a private collection ( op. cit., no. D36).