Mercy
- Date
- 1792-1793
- Object type
- painting
- Technique
- oil
- Material
- canvas
- Dimensions
- dia.: 156,0 cm
- Acquisition date
- 1793
- Location
- The Palace on the Isle - Salle de Salomon, ground floor
- Place of Origin
- Warsaw (Poland, Mazowieckie)
- Owner
- The Royal Łazienki
- Museum number
- ŁKr 129
Bacciarelli made use of Ripa’s description of Clemenza which appears in his Iconology, only changing the details slightly. According to Ripa, it should depict a woman crushing a pile of weapons, holding an olive branch in her right hand and leaning her left shoulder against the trunk of a tree, on which fasces are hung … . In the painting this latter attribute is located at the feet of the personification.
Agnieszka Skrodzka (See A. Skrodzka, Virtutis invidia comes, czyli o Rotundzie w Łazienkach Królewskich, BHS, 2009, v. 71, No. 1/2, pp. 87‒111, p. 95) suggests that it is a crypto-portrait of Helena Radziwiłłowa. It shows some similarities with the likenesses of Radziwiłłowa … . Comparable analogies can be found, e.g. in Bacciarelli’s portrait of Julia Duhamel from c.1791 (Raczyński Foundation at the National Museum in Poznań … .
The fact that the ladies in Stanisław August’s entourage sat for mythological, Biblical and allegorical figures painted by Bacciarelli, is confirmed by correspondence between the king and the artist, e.g. from 1784, concerning the paintings for the Knights’ Hall at the Royal Castle in Warsaw … . [See D. Juszczak, H. Małachowicz, The Stanisław August Collection of Paintings at the Royal Łazienki. Catalogue, Royal Łazienki Museum, Warsaw 2016, no. 13, pp. 83–85.]
