AMIGONI, JACOPO

BATHSHEBA AT HER TOILET

This picture depicts the moment when a messenger from King David hands the beautiful Bathsheba a letter summoning her to the palace. The canvas is a sketch to be used for a picture by Jacopo Amigoni and dates from the 1730s. The sketch executed with a light and elegant touch captures the vivid immediacy of the moment when the creative idea took shape. Amigoni emerges here as a typical painter in the Rococo style, on the development of which he exerted a major influence in the painting of both Venice and Europe.

Provenance: donated to the Museum in 1937 by M.B.Benediktov (Moscow).