FR EN
1 / 3
a painting of a woman holding a bowl of wateran image of a painting of a woman holding a fish bowla window with a wooden frame on the outside of it
Dams Casa d'Aste

24 - Il Padovanino – Artemisia Prepares to Receive the Ashes of H…
See original version (Italian)

Estimate €3,000 - €6,000
Sale commission
Description
Il Padovanino – Artemisia Prepares to Receive the Ashes of Her Husband Mausolus, 1630–1635, oil on canvas, 78 x 102 cm The painting depicts Artemisia II of Caria, sister and wife of Mausolus, ruler of Halicarnassus, celebrated in ancient sources as a model of marital fidelity. According to the account handed down by Valerius Maximus, after her husband’s death, Artemisia had his ashes dissolved in water and drank them, symbolically becoming his ‘living tomb’. The painting captures the moment immediately preceding this final act. The queen, lost in thought and grief, almost clutches the precious urn containing Mausolus’s ashes to her chest, whilst with her left hand she holds a white handkerchief, an allusion to the tears she has shed. Beside her lies the goblet intended to hold the drink, whilst the crown evokes the royal dignity of the deceased. The setting, reduced to just a few elements—the marble shaft of a column, the drapery and a glimpse of open sky against a distant mountainous silhouette—emphasises the solemn and intimately theatrical nature of the scene.The work belongs to the mature period of Alessandro Varotari’s career; he was a leading figure in the renewal of Venetian painting during the early decades of the seventeenth century. Padovanino developed his own artistic language by drawing primarily on Titian’s chromatic classicism—which he had studied since his youth—whilst at the same time, during his stay in Rome, assimilating the influences of Emilian and Bolognese culture.The monumental figure of Artemisia, the softness of the flesh tones, the sharp contours of the face and the broad, measured rhythm of the composition find significant parallels in the works the artist produced around the fourth decade of the century.Giuseppe Sava identifies an early comparison with the *Sofonisba* in the National Gallery of Belgrade, dated 1630–1631, in which similar eloquent gestures, the softness of the limbs and a deliberately minimalist setting recur. Similar parallels emerge with the *Cleopatra* now in the Museo de Arte in Ponce, particularly in the sensual portrayal of the subject, the sharpness of the facial features and the play of light on the fabrics.Further points of comparison include the *Judith and her Maidservant* in the Civic Museum of Padua and, above all, *Eumenes and Rossana* from the Hermitage in St Petersburg, a work dating from around 1630–1635. The latter features a compositional structure particularly similar to the present canvas: half-length figures arranged in a slow and solemn rhythm, the figures resting on a horizontal surface, the subtle ripples in the drapery, the warm tones and the smooth contours of the faces.It is precisely these similarities, according to Sava, that suggest a date for this work by Artemisia between 1630 and 1635, a period in which the Padovanino style achieved a particularly successful synthesis of Titianesque monumentality, classicist elegance and narrative intensity. Framed.
See original version (Italian)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
About the sale Paintings and Drawings from the 15th to the 19th century
Auction location
Auction time 10/29/2026 at 3:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
You may also like