Lot 1060 Dα

This painting, of old German noble descent, is a previously unknown work by the Baroque painter Giovanni Battista Langetti. The attribution to this artist, active in Venice in the 17th century and a highly respected artist of the time (M. Boschini), is confirmed by Bernard Aikema. On the basis of two vertical creases along the sides of the canvas and another along the bottom edge, it can be assumed that the very dirty large-scale work was previously adapted from a smaller size.
At least two more versions of this scene from Roman history, although smaller and compositionally reduced with regard to the figure of Cato, are known to exist by Langetti: one is located in the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro - here is also a detail of our still life, see lower right of the picture - the other, in the Hermitage in Leningrad, similarly shows a raised arm holding the dagger.