Possibly J.B. de Troy, director of the Académie de Rome;
His deceased sale, Paris, Rémy, 9-19 April 1764, lot 20, one of two paintings by Mola ('Deux très beaux tableaux de ce Maître; l'un représente une Pastorale, composée de deux figures de belle proportion; l'autre, Narcis qui se regarde dans l'eau; ils sont peints sur toile et portent chacun 3 pieds 9 pouces de haut, sur deux pieds 9 pouces de large').

Possibly R. Cocke, Pier Francesco Mola, Oxford 1972, p. 76, cat. no. L.63 (under 'Paintings attributed to P.F. Mola that can no longer be traced').

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a very old lining and stretcher. This may have been quite early when the paint was young and has accentuated the canvas texture. There have been no real accidental damages at all, but a few minor little retouched knocks, which have recently been reinforced behind with glue or tiny silk patches: one in the upper sky, one short diagonal line near the wedges at the lower right corner, a little old puncture in the blue folds in the centre, another small mark by the stretcher bar line at the mid left edge and a long line along the base stretcher bar line through the ankle and the water. A little vertical retouching in the elbow and a patch of retouching behind the heel do not seem necessarily to be due to knocks, with another small retouching in the lower left sky, and in the hair. The restoration is quite recent, although there has been a certain amount of past cleaning, particularly in the flesh painting and the shadowy blue drapery, where past wear can be seen, as well as around the outstretched hand. The darks are far richer, and fine with the glimmering horizon through the central foliage, and much free, romantic brushwork. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

The subject of this painting is taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses (3: 339-510). The story tells how Narcissus, the son of the river-god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope, fell in love with his own reflected image. He was drawn to his own likeness but, being unable to touch it, he pined away and was transformed into the flower that bears his name. In Ovid'🌞s telling of the story, Narcissus' metamorphosis was a punishment for spurning the love of the nymph Echo, who had been deprived of normal speech by Hera and could only repeat what others said. Echo had tried to seduce Narcissus by imitating his voice but had been rejected. Overcome by grief, Echo wasted away until nothing was left but her voice. Mola has chosen to depict Narcissu𓆏s alone, absorbed in his own image, and there is no sign of Echo here. Narcissus is shown kneeling before his reflection in a watering-hole, his right hand outstretched as if in surprise at catching sight of himself in the pool. The story clearly held great appeal for Mola for he treated the subject on a number of occasions. Here the main protagonist – Narcissus – dominates the scene: he is set in a lush landscape and the figure is by far the largest, in relation to the picture space, in all the known representations of the subject by the artist.

Erich Schleier, a copy of whose written study on the picture is available on request, has dated the painting to shortly after Mola's return to Rome in 1648-49; that is to the end of the 1640s or very early 1650s. Other treatments of the subject by Mola are also datable for the most part to the late 1640s: one, listed by Cocke as in the collection of Col. E.A. Cranstoun, Corehouse, Lanark, shows Narcissus and Echo;¹ another, in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, also shows both figures and Narcissus is attended by hunting dogs;² a third, showing Narcissus reclining, was published by Luigi Salerno in 1978 but not listed by Cocke.³  Further supporting a date of execution around 1650 is a comparison between this painting and Mola's Prodigal Son in Rotterdam, Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, which has been convincingly dated to the early 1650s by Laura Laureati, Stella Rudolph and Erich Schleier.⁴  The figures of Narcissus and the Prodigal Son are both painted in marked chiaroscuro and the influences of the young Guercino and Annibale Carracci are evident in both works, particularly in the tonality of the colour palette and plasticity of the main protagonists. Both landscapes are reminiscent of Carracci but in the Narcissus the influence of Salvator Rosa and Gaspard Dughet is more evident; the latter indeed collaborated with Mola in a painting for Cardinal Luigi Alessandro Omodei (now in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan) for which Mola provided the figure of Saint John the Baptist and Dughet the landscape.⁵

The early provenance of this painting is unknown but its dimensions closely correspond to those of a canvas of the same subject listed as part of a pair in the posthumous sale of J.B. de Troy, director of the Académie de Rome, in 1764: 'Deux très beaux tableaux de ce Maître; l'un représente une Pastorale, composée de deux figures de belle proportion; l'autre, Narcis qui se regarde dans l'eau; ils sont peints sur toile et portent chacun 3 pieds 9 pouces de haut, sur deux pieds 9 pouces de large'.⁶  The pendant, described as a 'pastorale', probably showed Erminia and the shepherds as this is not a unique pairing of subjects in Mola's œuvre: another such example is the pair listed in the 1740 inventory of Pierre Crozat's collection in Paris.⁷

We are g🌼rateful to both Dr. Erich Schleier and Francesco Petrucci forꦗ independently endorsing the attribution to Mola after inspection of the work in the original.

1. Oil on canvas, 64 by 47.5 cm.; see R. Cocke, under Literature, p. 45, cat. no. 8, reproduced plate 36.
2. Oil on canvas, 50 by 39 cm.; Cocke, op. cit., pp. 51-52, cat. no. 31, reproduced plate 17. A related drawing, in pen and ink wash, was formerly in the P.M. Turner collection (ibid., reproduced plate 16).
3. See L. Salerno, Pittori di paesaggio a Roma 1600-1760, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Galleria Gasparrini, 4-20 December 1978, pp. 26-30, no. 47, reproduced on the cover.
4. Inv. no. 2902, oil on canvas, 92.5 by 143 cm.; see L. Laureati, in Pier Francesco Mola 1612-1666, exhibition catalogue, Lugano, Museo Cantonale d'Arte, 23 September – 19 November 1989; and Rome, Musei Capitolini, 3 December – 31 January 1990; pp. 165 and 169, cat. no. I.16, reproduced in colour on p. 168.
5. The painting was commissioned as part of a pair, its pendant being an altarpiece by Salvator Rosa. Considered by Cocke to date from circa 1661 but more recently correctly dated to circa 1648-49 by Marie-Nicole Boisclair (M.-N. Boisclair, Gaspard Dughet 1615-1675, Paris 1986, pp. 200-201, cat. no. 100, reproduced fig. 141).
6. J.B. de Troy's deceased sale, Paris, Rémy, 9-19 April 1764, lot 20.
7. 1740 inv., no. 76: 'Deux petits tableaux faisant aussi pendant sous le même numéro, peints sur toile de sept pouces et demi de haut sur dix pouces et demi de large représentant l'un le sujet de Narcisse que se mire dans l'eau avec des chiens dans un fond de paysage, l'autre un paysage avec des figures assises par le Mola' (Cocke, ibid., p. 75, cat. nos. L.56 and L.57, under 'Paintings at꧅tributed to P.F. Mola that can no longer be tr🥂aced').