(Siena 1571–1639)
Job reproached by his wife
monogrammed on the right of the jug: RM
oil on canvas, 142 x 99.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
European private collection

Literature:
M. Ciampolini, Pittori senesi del Seicento, Siena 2010, vol. 1, p. 310 (as workshop of Rutilio Manetti)

We are grateful to Professor Sergio Benedetti for confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a digital photograph.

According to Benedetti the present painting should be dated to Manetti’s late period, around 1630. Stylistic comparisons can be made with a number of works executed by the artist between the late 1620’s and early 1630s, for example Lot and his Daughters in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in Rome, and the painting of the same subject in the Museo de Bellas Artes Valencia (see Rutilio Manetti, exhibition catalogue, ed. by A. Bagnoli, Firenze 1978, pp. 113-114, no. 46-47, reproduced).

Rutilio Manetti was trained in Siena, in the studio of Francesco Vanni and Ventura Salimbeni, and his earliest paintings are strongly influenced by the late Mannerism of his masters. Although the painter is not documented in Rome, it is generally assumed that he was there at some time between 1616 and 1621, as his works by the early 1620’s clearly display the influence of Roman and Bolognese painting and, in particular, that of Guercino, Caravaggio and his followers active in Rome in the second decade of 17th century.