Bacchus, Temperance and Cupid

Bottalla was a student of Pietro da Cortona, but temperamentally he was a much more classicising painter than his master, influenced by the art of the High Renaissance, Annibale Carracci’s Farnese ceiling and the work of his contemporaries in Rome such as Poussin.

The present painting, with its frieze-like composition and bright colouring, has much in common with the late classicising works which hark back to the High Renaissance.