MOLA, PIER FRANCESCO

HOMER DICTATING HIS POEMS

The artist who created this painting can be traced from the hand-written Hermitage Catalogue of 1797. Mola painted several compositions on this subject, as can be seen from the old sources mentioning three versions. Two are almost identical but differ from the Moscow one: one in the National Gallery of Ancient Art in Rome, and in the Dresden Picture Gallery (the latter is probably an old copy of the original).

Provenance: held in the Hermitage 1774-83; transferred to the Rumyantsev Museum (Moscow) in 1862; in the Pushkin Museum since 1924.