Lot 215: The Lamentation

Francesco Conti (Florence 1681-1760)
The Lamentation
oil on canvas, shaped top
51 x 32 1/8 in. (129.5 x 81.7 cm.)

We are grateful to Dr. Federico Berti for confirming the attribution on the basis of photographs and for his help in cataloguing this lot.
Francesco Conti treated the subject several times during his career, and at least two versions of the theme are mentioned in the inventories of the prestigious Riccardi family in Florence. Of the several versions known, the modelletto in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest and the painting in the Pratesi Collection in Florence are particularly comparable with this picture, in the disposition of the figure of Christ as well as in the handling of the paint. Dr. Berti proposes a date for the present picture of between the end of the 1710s and the beginning of the 1720s, as for the above mentioned two other versions (F. Berti, 'Francesco Conti e il Compianto sul Cristo morto di Budapest', Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux Arts , 102/103, 2005 (2006), pp. 113-9).