Pietro Paolini Lucca 1603 - 1681

Pietro Paolini was born in Lucca but in 1619 he was sent by his father to train in Angelo Caroselli’s workshop in Rome. He did not return to Lucca until 1631 whereupon Paolini established an academy attended by, amongst others, the Lucchese still-life painter Simone del Tintore (with whom Paolini is thought to have collaborated). It was during his Roman sojourn in the 1620s that Paolini absorbed the influence of Caravaggio and his followers, and in particular that of Bartolomeo Manfredi (whose figures must surely have inspired the Elders here). This painting demonstrates the strong use of chiaroscuro one associates with the caravaggisti and the Elders are particularly reminiscent of Jusepe de Ribera, whose works Paolini would no doubt have seen whilst in Rome since Ribera had been there between 1613 and 1616, leaving a number of paintings behind. The bald-headed man appears in other paintings by Paolini; in the guise of a shepherd in a painting sold, London, Christie's, 15 December 1989, lot 47, and as a lute-player in a painting today in the Fundaciòn Luis A. Ferrè, Museo d’Arte Ponce (Puerto Rico).¹ Both these works have been dated to the 1640s but the Susanna and the Elders is likely to have been painted slightly earlier.

1 For the latter see P. Giusti Maccari, Pietro Paolini pittore lucchese 1603-1681, Lucca 1987, p. 136, cat. no. 56, reproduced fig. 54.