Scipione col figlio e i messi di Antioco, 1970-71

The work recalls another painting, reproducing the same amount of space the painting occupies, and featuring its description, which is written in ink at the top of the sheet of paper pinned to the primed canvas. That painting is Scipio with the Son and the Messengers of Antiochus (1800), a painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres that was destroyed.1

1 The text written by hand by the artist was taken from L’opera completa di Ingres (Milan: Rizzoli, 1968), p. 87. The English translation of that text is as follows “Scipio with the Son and the Messengers of Antiochus / Destroyed in the 1871 fire that occurred while it was in the Gatteaux collection. Known of thanks to an engraved copy by Normand and a photograph in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris. / The words on the painting were as follows: “J.A.D. Ingres pinxit 1800. Mon premier tableau 2e grand prix de Rome”, referring to the fact that the painting won second prize at the “Prix de Rome”, 4 April 1800. / The theme concerns Antiochus who, having learned of the illness of his adversary Scipio, sends his son, who is his prisoner, back to him; the moment portrayed in the painting is when Scipio, his son beside him / after being returned by his father's generous adversary, tells the messengers of the King of Syria to express his gratitude to their sovereign.