Oil on canvas
Period: dated 1770
Provenance : Italy
Dimensions : H : 104,7 in – W : 13,4 inches for each panel
These panels are directly inspired by the decorations painted in 1517 in the Vatican lodges at the request of Pope Leo X by Raphael (1483-1520) and his students, according to drawings by Donato Bramante.
We find similar sets in the galleries of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. These were commissioned by the Empress Catherine II of Russia in the late 1780s, and executed under the direction of the painter Christoph Unterberger in the galleries created by the architect Giacomo Quarenghi (1744 Bergamo - 1817 St Petersburg).
These panels illustrate the different scenes of the Bible, the Old and New Testaments.
The fact that our panels present for two of them a portrait of Catherine II from Russia when she was young, their remarkable quality of execution, and the richness of the illustrated themes, all of these elements allow us to presume a link between these different panel orders, which were made at the same time for St. Petersburg.
