ATTRIBUTED TO GIOVANNI DAVID (CABELLA LIGURE 1749-1790 GENOA)
Moses presenting the tablets of the law
faintly inscribed Salvator Rosa (lower left)
pen, ink and ink wash over a partial underdrawing in black chalk, with traces of squaring in black chalk
30 x 39.5 cm

Giovanni David studied with Domenico Corvi in Rome in the early 1770’s, winning a first prize at the Accademia di San Luca in 1775.

The present work bears striking resemblance especially in the composition to David's final entry to the prize, and may be considered a first study for it. The subject that the contestants were assigned for the (international) competition that year was "Moses who, having taken up the new Tables of the Law, returned to the People, explains to them with his veiled head the precepts imprinted on them by God". The winning watercolour and ink on paper by David is still held in the archive of the Accademia di San Luca (inv. A.488, see last image accompanying this lot, from M. Newcome Schleier and Grasso, Giovanni David: pittore e incisore della famiglia Durazzo, p. 17).

David spent some time in Naples and in Venice before returning to Genoa at the end of the 1770’s. There he entered the service of the Genoese count Giacomo Durazzo, a diplomat and collector who had earlier sponsored David’s artistic training in Rome and who was to be his protector and chief patron throughout his career. He also produced a large number of prints of allegorical, iterary and genre subjects, as well as reproductive etchings after the work of earlier artists. Many of his prints seem to have been commissioned by Giacomo Durazzo, or were dedicated to him.