The Testament of Cato Uticensis

The Expertise

This painting is a characteristic work of Antonio Molinari. It is one of the many canvases, nearly all of the same size, with ancient or biblical history as a subject matter, painted by Molinari in his full artistic maturity; among which the “Berenice” in the Ringling Museum of Sarasota and others in private collections edited in my “Pittura del Settecento Veneto” 1982, figs 378, 382, 386. As in those, also in this picture one can observe the skillful composition, the brilliant play of shadows and the contrast between the lights and the middle tones of the figurative volumes. Each formal element is well linked and merged in a harmonious and highly pictorial whole. Helps in obtaining this effect also the light and fresh tonality of the colours that anticipates, albeit against a background derived from the so called “tenebrosi” (Zanchi, Loth…), some aspects of the great Venetian painting of the 18th century. To me this work appears important because in Düsseldorf’s Kunstmuseum there is the related preparatory sketch coming from the Krahe Collection (inv. 3572); this work therefore reestablishes and documents, as other paintings do and as I had already remarked in “La Pittura veneziana del Settecento” 1964, the fact that all Krahe works mistakenly attributed to Pellegrini belong instead to the hand of Molinari. For this reason, it is my intention to publish the painting here at issue in a forthcoming study on this subject. (Egidio Martini)