Almost certainly acquired by Sir William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898) for 11 Carlton House Terrace, London, or Hawarden Castle;
Thence by descent to the present owner.

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. Saint Peter: The canvas is lined and the paint surface is in a stable condition, apart from earlier restorations having degraded, with the impasto well preserved. There is a horizontal seam towards the top of the painting. As well as the obvious flaking there has been some earlier minor paint loss in the sky and elsewhere across the paint surface, some of these have been retouched out. Some of the more delicate paint scumbles are thin allowing the ground layer to dominate. Christ and Adultress: The painting is similar to St Peter apart some more obvious paint losses to the architecture and recent damages to the sky and to an area lower left. The figures on both paintings are in good condition. Both paintings have considerably discoloured and degraded varnishes and tonally would improve significantly. Moulded gilt wood frames, some chips."
"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 anonymous Pseudo-Codazzi was identified by David Ryley Marshall in his 1993 mongraph on Viviano and Niccolò Codazzi.¹ Ryley Marshall identifies a group of works very closely related to Codazzi's Neapolitan works of the 1640s and early 1650s but which are slightly cruder in handling and nearly all of which have figures close to the style of Domenico Gargiulo. More recently, in private correspondance, Ryley Marshall has tentatively identified the anonymous painter as Antonio de Michele on the basis of the recent discovery of a painting in a private collection, which on a stylistic basis he also gives to the Pseudo-Codazzi, and which is signed ADM and dated 1647. Three paintings by a "Tonno (i.e. Antonio) de Michele" and Gargiulo are mentioned in the 1659 inventory, made in Naples, of Ettore Capecelatro, Marchese di Torella, and further works given to both artists appear in the 1679 inventory of Onofrio de Palma, Consigliere di S. Chiara, and the 1699 inventory of Pompiglio Gagliano, also from Naples. Ryley Marshall does not consider the figures in the present works to be by Gargiulo himself, however, and given their crudeness he attributes them to the Pseudo-Codazzi/ Michele himself, or someone working in his studio.

Prior to the discovery of the monogrammed painting, Ryley Marshall had argued for an identification of the Pseudo-Codazzi with the young Asciano Luciano, a theory which he now considers less plausible.

We are grateful to David Ryley Marshall for his he☂lp in identifying the author of these works and for proposing a date of execution in the 1650s. 

A note on the Provenance: This pair of paintings were probably acquired by Sir William Gladstone during his trip to Naples from 26 October 1850 to 26 February 1851. According to his diary entry for 30 November 1850 he purchased many works from the art dealer Raffaele Barone, a fine art dealer in Strada Trinità Maggiore, completing the transaction the following day on 1st December. Waagen, who visited Gladstone's residence at 11 Carlton House Terrace, refers to only five paintings,² including Lucas Cranach's Lamentation  sold in ꦡthese Rooms, 14 D🃏ecember 2000, lot 61, for £108,000.

1. D. Ryley Marshall, Viviano and Niccolò Codazzi, Rome 1993, p. 435ff..
2. See G. F. Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, London 1857, p. 1523.