Allegory of Peace
by VOUET, Simon, Oil on canvas, 350 x 250 cm
The attribution of this painting is debated, the painter could be a student of Vouet’s workshop in Rome. The closeness between the Vouet Magdalene (in the same museum) and the figure in the foreground of this allegory is strong enough to make it probable that the execution of these two figures was done by the same hand, or at the very least by the same workshop. It could be connected with both Simon Vouet, or alternately to the anonymous “Brother of Cavalier Muti” who vanished from the Roman scene immediately after the return of Vouet to France.
The subject, clearly celebrating the Barberini family, may well have been suggested by Francesco Bracciolini, the mind behind the iconographic program of the great Divine Providence vault cycle that Pietro da Cortona frescoed in the Palazzo Barberini.