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Description: Amor Punished by Nymphs. Antonio Balestra's development paralleled that of Sebastiano Ricci (who was a few years older), though he never achieved the rococo character of the latter's drawings. An asssesment of Balestra's art as a draughtsman has to be based on a relatively small number of sheets. There were three at the 17th century exhibition in Venice in 1959 and others have appeared since then, chiefly in connection with the exhibitions at Fondazione Cini. These provide some clues for dating his works. The series of eight sheets at Nationalmuseum seem to have been in Sweden around 1730. 

This sheet and the next two form a very homogeneous group stylistically, with fairly strong elements of Roman baroque influence. Balestra spent four years in Rome in the early 1690s and took the opportunity to study Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni and Domenichino.

Our sheets have no direct parallels among the drawings that are known to be by Balestra. Pignatti assumes that he pursued a style of pen drawings influenced by Carpioni in the years around the turn of the century. His example, however, is radically different from the first mature period and hardly admits this group, which seems to be datable to the years of his youth in Rome or shortly afterwards, i.e. the 1690s. [Bjurström, It. Drawings, cat. no. 161]

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Antonio Balestra | Amor bestraffas av nymfer | Nationalmuseum