Completed Continental European after 1800, Continental European before 1800, Dress and Textiles 24 Who painted Judith with the Head of Holofernes?

Without knowing more, it reminds me a little of Elizabetta Siriani's work. Even the costume is similar from one of these two paintings of ES.

Agreed, this is 17th century.

This is certainly not the type of picture associated with Vigée Le Brun, who was a portrait painter. Also, I am not convinced this is 18th century, pace the NICE Paintings entry.

To me this is by Giovanni Ricca. His corpus of paintings is still being compiled, and he is often confused with Francesco Guarino - so if this painting can be attributed to Ricca, I think it will need to remain tentatively attributed for the time being.... But it's certainly not connected to Vigee Le Brun.

Please contact Giuseppe Porzio/Riccardo Lattuada/Viviana Farina/Nicola Spinosa to confirm the attribution. They are spearheading the compilation of this artist's works.

The lighting looks influenced by Caravaggio, and 17th century seems rather more likely than 18th. Both Ricca and Guarino were 17th century painters active in the Naples area. A connection to Vigée Le Brun is quite implausible at best.

Here's a Ricca Madonna with a similar face:

https://bit.ly/3iFhd1F

Ricca's St Catherine:

https://bit.ly/3zkQSvE

Another Judith, also by Ricca;

https://bit.ly/3x7wbBE

I would support an attribution to Giovanni Ricca.

As suggested by Nicholas de Gaetano I have sent an enquiry to Riccardo Lattuada to see whether he can confirm a possible attribution to Giovanni Ricca.

The strong colours and tenebrism of this painting certainly make it look like a Neapolitan picture of the first half of the 17th century. But I wonder if rather than looking at Giovanni Ricci, we might be better picking Francesco Guarino. The latter's painting seems to be more soft-focused that Ricci's whose line is sharper and clearer, and Guarino also seems prone to more dramatic gesture.

Mark, are you referring to Giovanni Ricci (1537-1627) or Giovanni Ricca (1603-1656)?

Ooops! Thanks for picking that up Jacinto - that's what happens when you post at half two in the morning. I meant Giovanni Ricca of course.

I was impressed by the similarity of the model here to the examples in Ricca's work you gave above, but of course painters working in the same city at the same time might well use the same people to pose for them. This seems to have a more graceful, 'soft-focus' feel to it, more characteristic of Guarino. (Maybe it's that sort of feeling in the picture that made people think of Vigée Le Brun).

If as Nicholas said above, the corpuses of the two are often mixed (and I've seen the same painting attributed to both) then I may be looking at the wrong paintings anyway. And there are lots of other painters working in Naples in a similar manner at that time as well (at least till the plague of 1656 kills most of them).

Yes, at this point, only an expert would be able to say with authority whether Ricca or Guarino is a better fit, and no doubt a Ricca expert is quite familiar with that type of question.

I thought you might be interested in the nearly identical necklace and head of Holofernes in this 16th work that is attributed to Vincent Sellaer.

The Sellaer Judith is a Mannerist work, while ours is Baroque.

We are trying obtain a better image to send to Riccardo Lattuada.

Could the artist be Guido Reni (1575-1642)? I have attached a composite based on extracts of this work, “The Flight into Egypt” https://tinyurl.com/5ecv2ras and “Woman with a Bowl” https://tinyurl.com/szx369r5. Reni was Elisabetta Sirani’s father’s pupil according to Reni’s entry on Wikipedia.

Sorry, “Elisabetta Sirani, whose father had been Reni's pupil”.

Articles (attached) in the ‘The Englishman’ of June 24, 1827, and the ‘Lincolnshire Chronicle and General Advertiser’ of November 8, 1839, mention auctions that included a painting by Guido Reni with the title ‘Judith with the Head of Holofernes’.

A beautiful Michele Desubleo.

Desubleo was much influenced by Guido Reni.

The collection was going to obtain a high-quality image for Riccardo Lattuada last July. He was fairly sure that it is by Ricca but he was waiting for that, so I'm trying to find out what progress was made.

Plate 169 (page 313) of the book at the link below shows a ‘Judith with the Head of Holofernes’ by Reni but it is the girl on the far left in plate 168 (page 312) who seems to more closely match the young woman in the Art UK work.
https://www.google.ca/books/edition/The_Divine_Guido/8CvupKJfm8sC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=The+divine+reni+169&pg=PA313&printsec=frontcover

A better image for plate 168 is on the website of the Art Institute of Chicago as ‘Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist’.
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/11434/salome-with-the-head-of-saint-john-

I have attached a composite.

Has Prof Lattuada confirmed my attribution for this painting to Ricca? Kindly update us, thank you