Lot 2: NICHOLAS GUY BRENET Fr. 1728 -1792

NICHOLAS GUY BRENET Fr. 1728 -1792 Death of Orion Oil on canvas 63 × 51 in.(160.0 × 129.5 cm)

63 × 51 in.(160.0 × 129.5 cm)

Oil on canvas

Provenance Shepherd Gallery, New York To the current owner. The property of Peter Walch, Portland, Maine.

Another version of this picture sold at Christie's London on November 21, 1995, as part of the Rudolf Nureyev Sale. That picture (probably also autograph) was cut down on the left, and had slight changes to the left hand and face. We date the current picture to the period 1756 -1758, when the young Brenet was at the French Academy in Rome, and came under the spell of Caravaggio. The subject is not, as the Nureyev Sale catalogue proposed, St. Sebastian, but rather the hunter Orion, who was killed by Diana for chasing after one of her nymphs.