Marco Liberi ( Attribuito )

(Venezia, 1644)

For the frayed and grainy pictorial ductus, for the characteristic typology of Leda's face and for the sensualistic pose still of Mannerist ancestry, the painting can be ascribed to the hand of the Venetian painter Marco Liberi, who counts in his corpus numerous works that have as their theme the loves of Jupiter. Specifically, see the comparison with Jupiter and Asteria of the Szépmuveszeti Muzeum in Budapest (Ruggeri, p.60), or the female figure in Mercury masking Justice (Ruggeri, p.292 m25). The signature and date placed at the bottom right of the drapery (Coypel 1732) are therefore added later.

Bibliography: U. Ruggeri, Pietro and Marco Liberi: painters in seventeenth-century Venice, Stefano Patacconi Editore, 1996