GUARDI, GIANANTONIO

ALEXANDER THE GREAT BY THE BODY OF THE PERSIAN KING DARIUS

This is a free interpretation of a composition by the 17^th-century Genoese artist, Giambattista Langetti (private collection, Genoa). In the 19^th-century it was considered a work of Antonio Tempesta; in the Pushkin Museum it was held to be a work by Giuseppe Bazzani and was later attributed to Francesco Guardi (attribution by V.N. Lazarev). Modern critics are unanimous in their belief that the Moscow picture and works similar to it should be linked with the work of Gianantonio Guardi.

Provenance: sold at one of the Paris auctions in the 19^th-century; held at the English Club (Moscow); transferred to the Rumyantsev Museum in Moscow in 1919; in the Pushkin Museum since 1924.