(Genua 1600–1650)
Prometheus Bound,
oil on canvas, 119.5 x 143 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Anna Orlando for suggesting the attribution and for her help in cataloguing the present painting

The present painting depicts a scene from classical mythology. The son of the Titan Iapetus, Prometheus, dared defy Zeus and stole fire from the gods to give it to man. The king of Olympus designed a terrible punishment for him. Prometheus was chained to a rock and tormented by an eagle who devoured his liver with a daily, sadistic regularity. From mythology, this tale was interpreted as a type for Christ bringing divine salvation to man and enduring torture on the cross as a result. Prometheus and Christ stand for the redemption of man from tyranny.

Assereto was an artist of “dissent”, adopting the term by which Luigi Salerno described a number of other 17th century artists (Salerno, 1970). His first biographer, Raffaele Soprani (1674, p. 167 and 171) dubbed the Genoese painter “witty” and “saturnine”, and the “fantasy of his capricious thoughts” was “terrifying” (ibid., p. 168). It is therefore no surprise to come across more than one version of this subject.

The present compostion can be compared to the picture in the Musée de la Chartreuse in Douai, France (83 x 69.5 cm, inv. 134 ), where the half-length-figure is shown arched backwards, twisting and screaming, caught in a moment of suffering. This physical pain is also expressed in two other identical half-length-figures of Prometheus, so similar that, in 2005, Anna Orlando initially believed them to be the same painting. One was formerly attributed to Carl Loth when it appeared at auction (Sotheby’s, London, 11th July 2002, lot 191, 129.5 x 96.3 cm) and the other, in a Turinese collection, was attributed to Giovanni Battista Langetti (109 x 86.5 cm; see: S. Gianuzzi Savelli, in: Il male, exhibition catalogue, Turin 2005, p. 326, no. 64). Orlando’s unification of the two pictures was cited by T. Zennaro who, however, did not believe them to be autograph (see T. Zennaro, Gioacchino Assereto (1600-1650) e i pittori della sua scuola, Soncino 2011, cat. B26, pp. 597-598 for the Sotheby’s picture and E16 for the Turinese one).

Two other similar versions are known with the figure of Prometheus occupying a diagonal across the entire vertical of the canvas. These are the versions in the Koelliker collection in Milan which appeared at Finarte auction (Milan, 31st May 2000, lot 40) with the correct attribution proposed by Daniele Benati, and the very similar but not identical one sold in a Cambi auction in Genoa in April-May of 2005, recently noted by T. Zennaro (see T. Zennaro, op. cit., Soncino 2011, cat. A116, pp. 410-411). The two works are closely linked to that of the Marsyas flayed by Apollo, a mature preparatory work by Assereto for the frescos of Palazzo Ayrolo Negrone in Genoa of 1644 (see Soprani, 1674, pp. 170-171). The present work is comparable to all these works, and should be considered as a significant addition to Asserato´s oeuvre. An important part of the rich corpus of works by the artist created under the influence of Ribera. It can also be dated to the years of the artist’s maturity between 1640 and 1650.