Polycrates and the Fisherman

1664

Salvator Rosa (Italian, 1615–1673)

This painting and its companion piece recount the story of the Greek king Polycrates, as told by the ancient historian Herodotus. Polycrates, ruler of the island of Samos, worried that he was tempting fate with his great prosperity. He tried to introduce some counterbalancing misfortune into his life by throwing a precious signet ring into the sea, but it was swallowed by a large fish and returned to the king by a fisherman, the episode shown here. Polycrates’s good fortune came to an end when he was entrapped by Oroetus of Sardis and put to death, the event illustrated in Polycrates’ Crucifixion.

Status: On View, Gallery 209
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Salvator Rosa
Title: Polycrates and the Fisherman
Place: Italy (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1664
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower right, in ligature: SR
Dimensions: 73 × 98.6 cm (28 1/2 × 38 13/16 in.); Framed: 87 × 112.4 × 7 cm (34 1/4 × 44 1/4 × 2 3/4 in.)
Credit Line: Wentworth Greene Field Memorial Fund
Reference Number: 1942.291
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/44826/manifest.json

Frederick A. Sweet, “Two Canvases by Salvator Rosa, “ Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 3 (1942), p. 100 (ill.).
“Report for the Year 1942,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 37 (March 1943), pt. 3, pp. 7, 157.
Sol A. Davidson, “Twin Rosa Canvases Acquired by Chicago,” The Art Digest 17 (February 15, 1943), p. 15 (ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago, An Illustrated Guide to the Collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 1945, p. 29.
The Art Institute of Chicago, An Illustrated Guide to the Collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 1948, p. 26.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961) p. 403.
Luigi Salerno, Salvator Rosa, Milan, 1963, pp. 52, 112–13, no. 54 (ill.).
A[lfred] M[oir], Art In Italy, 1600–1700, exh. cat., pp. 141–142, under no. 157.
Richard William Wallace, “The Figure Paintings of Salvator Rosa,” Ph. D. diss., Princeton University, 1965, (Ann Arbor, University Microfilms), pp. 80, 82–89, 157, fig. 50.
Richard William Wallace, “Salvator Rosa’s ‘Death of Atilius Regulus’,” Burlington Magazine 109 (1967), p. 396.
Richard William Wallace, “Salvator Rosa’s ‘Justice Appearing to the Peasants,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute 30 (1967), p. 432.
Peter A. Tomory, Salvator Rosa: His Etchings and Engravings After His Works, exh. cat., (John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, 1971), n. p., under. No. 23.
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), pp. 177, 482, 571.
Richard Wallace, Salvator Rosa, 1973, exh. cat., Hayward Gallery, London 1975, p. 62, under no. 102.
A[ndor] Pigler, Barockthemen : eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Ikonographie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, 2nd ed., Budapest, 1974, p. 415.
Mario Rotili, Salvator Rosa incisore, Naples, 1974, pp. 101–102, 224, under no. 104.
Luigi Salerno, L’opera completa di Salvator Rosa, Milan, 1975, pp. 101–102, no. 214 (ill.), pl. 59.
Michael Mahoney, The Drawings of Salvator Rosa, New York and London, 1977, I, p. 115.
Wendy Wassyng Roworth, “Pictor Succensor”:A Study of Salvator Rosa as Satirist, Cynic and Painter, New York and London, 1978, p. 346, fig. 55b.
Ubaldo Meroni, Lettere e altri documenti intorno alla storia della pittura, Giovani Benedetto Castiglione, detto il Grecchetto, Salvator Rosa, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Fonti per la storia della pittura e della scultura antica, VIII, Monzambano, 1978, p. 89.
Luigi Salerno, Landscape Painters of the Seventeenth Century in Rome, Rome 1977–78, vol. 2, p. 550.
John T. Spike, review of Wellesley College Museum, Salvator Rosa in America, in Burlington Magazine 121 (1979), p. 543.
Giulia de Marchi, Mostre di quardri a S. Salvatore in Lauro (1682–1725), stime di collezioni romane, note e appunti di Giuseppe Ghezzi, Miscellanea della Società Romana di Storia Patria, Rome, 1987, pp. 392–93.
Monica Preti in Il Seicento Fiorentino. Arte a Firenze da Ferdinando I a Cosimo III, exh. cat. Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, 1986, p. 158.
Monica Preti in La pittura in Italia: Il Seicento, Milan, 1988, vol. 2, p. 868.
Laura Muti and Daniele de Sarno Prignano, “L’avventura artistica di Antonio Francesco Peruzzini creatore e artefice della pittura moderna di paesaggio” in Antonio Francesco Peruzzini, exh. cat. Ancora Mole Antonelliana, 1997, p. 19, fig. 2.
Jonathan Scott, Salvator Rosa. His Life and Times, New Haven and London, 1999, pp. 153–6, 181, 185, fig. 194.
Andreas Stolzebburg et al., Salvator Rosa : Genie der Zeichnung : Studien und Skizzen aus Leipzig und Haarlem, exh. cat., Museum der Bildenden Künste Leipzig, 1999, p. 184, ill.

New York, Schaeffer Galleries, Gem of Baroque Painting, 1942, no. 30.
New York, Durlacher Brothers, A Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Salvator Rosa 1615–1673, 1948, no. 2.
Grand Rapids, Michigan, Art Gallery, Old Master from Midwestern Museums, 1948–49, no. cat.
Flint, Michigan, Flint Institute of Arts, A Survey from Giotto to the Impressionists, 1949, no. cat.
Pasadena, California, Pasadena Art Institute, Baroque Exhbition, 1950, no. cat.
Winnipeg Art Gallery, Exhibition of Favorite Italian and Spanish Masters of the 17th and 18th Centuries (The Baroque Era), 1951, no. 21.
Wellesley, Massachusetts, Wellesley College Museum, Salvator Rosa in America, 1979, no. 11.
London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Salvator Rosa, 1615-1673: Bandits, Wilderness and Magic; Fort Worth, Kimbell Museum of Art, December 12, 2010-March 27, 2011 [Fort Worth only].

Bonaventura Argenti (died 1697), Rome; by descent to Argenti’s heirs, Rome 1697 to 1698 [“Due quardri da Quattro palmi in circa, con due Historie di Policrate cornice dorata di Salvator Rosa, 250 Scudi“ (Two pictures, each about four palms across, with two histories of Policrates framed in gold by Salvator Rosa, 250 Scudi); Giuseppe Ghezzi, “Quadri delle case de Prencipi in Roma,” 1686–1717, MS. 93, Palazzo Braschi, Rome, c. 283; published by Meroni 1978, p. 89 and de Marchi 1987, pp. 384, 392–93]; consigned for sale to Giuseppe Ghezzi, Rome, about 1698 [see Ghezzi 1686–1717 cited above]. Probably 2nd Earl of Warwick, (Warwick Castle) by 1801 [auction of June 1, 1801 at Christie’s, bought in; see Fredericksen and Zeri 1972]. Schaeffer Galleries, New York, 1942 [see New York 1942, no. 30]. A. F. Mondschein, New York by 1942; sold to the Art Institute, 1942.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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