PIETRO DA CORTONA (PIETRO BERRETTINI)

THE RETURN OF HAGAR

This picture was painted when the artist was working in Florence. A variant – slightly smaller in size – originating from the Palazzo Pitti in Florence is held in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (composition facing in the opposite direction). A group of preliminary drawings relating to this work exists (Louvre, British Museum). In all three drawings the depiction is arranged in the same way as that in the Pushkin Museum's picture.

Provenance: acquired for the Hermitage from the collection of Lord Walpole (Houghton Hall, England) in 1779; transferred to the Rumyantsev Museum in 1862; in the Pushkin Museum since 1924.