BENEDETTO GENNARI

(Cento 1633-1715 Bologna) Lot and his Daughters. Pen and brown ink and red chalk on cream laid paper. 185x270 mm; 7x10 inches. Partial circle within a circle watermark. Ex-collection John Whitcomb Bayley (Lugt supplement 223 a) and Sir David Kelly. Gennari trained with his uncle, Guercino, in Bolgona, before traveling to Paris and then to London, where in September 1674 he presented Charles II with an oil of Diana and Endymion. He became the only Italian painter that the English king was able to lure to England and his loyalty was such that, when the court of James II were exiled to Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris in 1689, Gennari followed the Catholic court and produced another 35 oils for the king.