Donato Creti

Exhibited by Lullo • Pampoulides

Material Oil on canvas

Dimensions 97 x 78 cm

Status Vetted

About the Work

This striking oil canvas, which resurfaced on the market in a dirty state at the end of 2024, was promptly recognised by Marco Riccomini as a significant addition to the oeuvre of Donato Creti, one of the most lyrical and original painters of the Bolognese school and one of its last great masters. With its arresting beauty and numerous pentimenti, it is hard to visualize a better image than this portrayal of a woman, almost certainly a Cleopatra, to match Giovan Pietro Zanotti’s 1739 description of Creti’s obsessive quest for ‘perfection and glory:’

‘He does everything with grace and elegance.

Everything he paints breathes

Forth refinement and nobility:

He studies ceaselessly, sighs, suffers,

and falls prey to obsessions:

such is his longing

for perfection and glory:’

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Literature

R. Roli, Donato Creti, 1967
Donato Creti. Melancholy and Perfection (exhibition catalogue), E. Riccòmini and C. Bernardini eds., in cooperation with K. Christiansen, Milan, 1998
M. Riccomini, Donato Creti. Le opere su carta. Catalogo ragionato, Turin, 2012