Lot 124: * MARIA FELICE SUBLEYRAS-TIBALDI ROME 1707-1770

THE BANQUET AT THE HOUSE OF SIMON

9 1/2 by 19 7/8 in.; 230 by 505mm

gouache on parchment

This is an apparently autograph version of the celebrated gouache on parchment in the Pinacoteca Capitolina in Rome, executed by Maria Felice Tibaldi, wife of the French painter Pierre Subleyras (1699-1749), after one of her husband's most famous paintings, the Magdalen washing the feet of Christ in the house of the Pharisee (see Subleyras, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, 1987, p. 199, fig. 1). The Pinacoteca Capitolina gouache was executed in 1748 and acquired by Benedict XIV, Lambertini in 1752. Both it and the present gouache are conceived as large miniature copies of the painting, which was executed for the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria Nuova d'Asti, near Turin. The original painting by Pierre Subleyras, signed and dated 1737, is now in the Louvre (see exhibition catalogue, op.cit, cat.no. 33).