Roman Charity, circle of Willem Drost (1633-1659)

A Dutch artist born in Amsterdam, he entered Rembrandt's workshop at a very young age around 1644; at that time Rembrandt's workshop consisted of several dozen very good painters, and he received commissions from all the European royal courts.
 Willem Drost, despite his young age, was noticed and became "one of Rembrandt's most talented pupils" according to Jonathan Bikker, author of the book William Drost "a Rembrandt pupil in Amsterdam and Venice". He is also curator of 17th-century paintings at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

 Drost produced between 1650 and 1655 works of great quality which brought him to the attention of the great collectors of the time, thus one of his works: Bathsheba, now kept in the Louvre Museum, can be considered a remarkable work.
 Many paintings long attributed to Rembrandt have in fact been reattributed to Willem Drost in recent years.
 In 1655, at the age of 22, he decided to leave for Italy, the second home of all painters of the time. He focused particularly on drawing inspiration from the Venetian Tenebrosi school, stemming from the work of José de Ribera (1591-1652). Thus, the lines of his style diverged from the representations of the Dutch school, but his acquired technique remained intact (finely applied parallel brushstrokes, chiaroscuro becoming omnipresent). In Venice, he worked with Giovanni Langetti and Carl Johann Loth on several projects. His works quickly found an audience among the Italian aristocracy, and although he died suddenly in 1659, only four years after settling in Italy, he left his mark on this period with his style. A similar work (see photo gallery) was rediscovered at a Christie's New York sale on January 31, 2024, lot 62. It has been definitively attributed to Jonathan Bikker, in a slightly different format (131.3 x 109.8 cm) compared to (141.7 x 117.8 cm) and exhibiting some minor differences in the skin tones of the figures. Our large-format painting depicts the story of a daughter's altruism towards her father, condemned to die of starvation; in chiaroscuro, the weary and exhausted body of Cimon is shrouded in shadow, while Pera's body is bathed in a light emanating from an uncertain, almost spiritual source. Her pearly flesh recalls the beauty of Bathsheba's body (Louvre Museum), whereas in the New York painting, her skin color blends with Cimon's. In the New York version, the basement window is depicted. His works are held in the following museums: Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Louvre Paris, National Gallery London, Copenhagen, Warsaw… Dimensions with frame: 149.7 cm x 135.8 cm Dimensions without frame: 141.7 cm x 117.8 cm