A crowned man holding up a sword lunges toward another man who wears a helmet and holds up both hands in this vertical painting. This happens in front of a long banquet table set with a rumpled white cloth. About a dozen people react or cling to each other on the far side of the table and more gather farther in the background. Most of the people have pale, peachy skin and wear tunics, robes, and dresses in shades of celestial and sky blue, pale yellow, forest green, peach, or white. The man holding the sword has a furrowed brow, and his lips are parted. He wears a molded yellow breastplate over seafoam-green, knee-length tunic. A marine-blue cloak patterned with a gold design wraps loosely around his shoulders, and he wears toeless, shin-high sandals on bare legs. A white pearl earring hangs from the ear we can see, and more pearls are on his breastplate. He holds the sword up with his right hand, farther from us, and holds the sheath with the other. He steps to our left, toward the man who wears royal-blue armor with gold trim, including a gold lion’s head at the shoulder. His silver helmet has gold decorations and a fluffy sky-blue feather. He faces our right so his face is in shadow, but his mouth is open. He steps onto his right leg, closer to us, as he leans back with his hands raised. A vivid red cloth flutters from his shoulders to his knees. The table behind this pair is on a platform with five steps. A man lies on the green and white checked floor on our side of the steps with his head coming toward us. He grips an urn with one arm and holds his other hand out. One foot is raised and the other knee bent so that foot is on the ground. Silver urns, trays, and a chalice sit on the steps to our right. Two people in the crowd on the far side of the table stand out. One is an ashen-faced woman wearing a crown to the left, who clutches another woman as she looks at the conflict. The other person is to the right and has dark brown skin and short, dark hair. That person wears an iron collar around the neck over a white pleated shirt and a sage-green vest edged in gold. The space behind the table is enclosed with a person-high wall topped with thick, dark green columns. A man to our left stands above the melee and reaches for another person, presumably to rescue them from the chaos. The space beyond opens into a tall, light-filled, white stone-clad space where people line balconies. Several spears and the tops of people’s heads indicate another group on the far side of the wall. A green curtain is pulled up into the top right corner of the composition.
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A crowned man holding up a sword lunges toward another man who wears a helmet and holds up both hands in this vertical painting. This happens in front of a long banquet table set with a rumpled white cloth. About a dozen people react or cling to each other on the far side of the table and more gather farther in the background. Most of the people have pale, peachy skin and wear tunics, robes, and dresses in shades of celestial and sky blue, pale yellow, forest green, peach, or white. The man holding the sword has a furrowed brow, and his lips are parted. He wears a molded yellow breastplate over seafoam-green, knee-length tunic. A marine-blue cloak patterned with a gold design wraps loosely around his shoulders, and he wears toeless, shin-high sandals on bare legs. A white pearl earring hangs from the ear we can see, and more pearls are on his breastplate. He holds the sword up with his right hand, farther from us, and holds the sheath with the other. He steps to our left, toward the man who wears royal-blue armor with gold trim, including a gold lion’s head at the shoulder. His silver helmet has gold decorations and a fluffy sky-blue feather. He faces our right so his face is in shadow, but his mouth is open. He steps onto his right leg, closer to us, as he leans back with his hands raised. A vivid red cloth flutters from his shoulders to his knees. The table behind this pair is on a platform with five steps. A man lies on the green and white checked floor on our side of the steps with his head coming toward us. He grips an urn with one arm and holds his other hand out. One foot is raised and the other knee bent so that foot is on the ground. Silver urns, trays, and a chalice sit on the steps to our right. Two people in the crowd on the far side of the table stand out. One is an ashen-faced woman wearing a crown to the left, who clutches another woman as she looks at the conflict. The other person is to the right and has dark brown skin and short, dark hair. That person wears an iron collar around the neck over a white pleated shirt and a sage-green vest edged in gold. The space behind the table is enclosed with a person-high wall topped with thick, dark green columns. A man to our left stands above the melee and reaches for another person, presumably to rescue them from the chaos. The space beyond opens into a tall, light-filled, white stone-clad space where people line balconies. Several spears and the tops of people’s heads indicate another group on the far side of the wall. A green curtain is pulled up into the top right corner of the composition.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

Alexander the Great Threatened by His Father

Donato Creti

Date
probably 1700/1705
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 129.7 x 97 cm (51 1/16 x 38 3/16 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1961.9.6
Credit line
Samuel H. Kress Collection
Time span
1651 to 1700
Department
CIS-B

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • Baroque
  • Bolognese
  • classical
  • secular
  • Alexander the Great
  • Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
  • Philip of Macedonia
Provenance

Possibly Count Alessandro Fava; his son, Count Pietro Ercole Fava [1667 or 1669-1744], Bologna, by 1739;[1] his son, Carlo Fava [d. 1790], Bologna, until at least c. 1770.[2] (Julius H. Weitzner [1896-1986], New York), by 1938;[3] purchased 1952 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1961 to NGA. [1] Giampietro Zanotti, _Storia dell'Accademia Clementina di Bologna_, 2 vols., Bologna, 1739 (reprinted 1977): 2:106, places the painting in Palazzo Fava; it is listed in Pietro Ercole's posthumous inventory of 1745, published in Giovanni Campori, _Raccolta di cataloghi ed inventari inediti_, Modena, 1870 (reprinted Bologna 1975): 602. Alessandro Fava was Creti's first patron and collected many of the artist's drawings. [2] It appears in the list of paintings in Bolognese houses compiled in the 1760s and 1770s by Marcello Oretti, "Le pitture...della Città di Bologna", 3 vols., Biblioteca Comunale, Bologna, MS B104, in _Marcello Oretti e il patrimonio artistico privato bolognese. (Documenti 22)_, edited by Emilia Calbi and Daniela Scaglietti Kelescian, Bologna, 1984: 90. According to Giuseppe Guidicini, _Cose notabili della città di Bologna_, 5 vols., 1868-1873: 2:186-188, Carlo Fava had no heirs and the palace passed to another branch of the family. [3] According to Fern Rusk Shapley, _Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XVI-XVIII Century_, London, 1973: 101; and Fern Rusk Shapley, _Catalogue of Italian Paintings_, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:148. [4] _Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection, Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-1956_, Washington, D.C., 1956: 62. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/162.

NGA object ID 46105. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.