Polycrates and the Fisherman

Salvator Rosa

Period

1650-1700

Theme

Tragedy & Death

Medium

Oil on canvas

Current Location

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

The Story

This painting and its companion piece recount the story of the Greek king Polycrates, as told by the ancient historian Herodotus. Polycrates, ruler of the island of Samos, worried that he was tempting fate with his great prosperity. He tried to introduce some counterbalancing misfortune into his life by throwing a precious signet ring into the sea, but it was swallowed by a large fish and returned to the king by a fisherman, the episode shown here.

Polycrates’s good fortune came to an end when he was entrapped by Oroetus of Sardis and put to death, the event illustrated in Polycrates’ Crucifixion.

The physical object — Oil on canvas, 73 × 98.6 cm (28 1/2 × 38 13/16 in.); Framed: 87 × 112.4 × 7 cm (34 1/4 × 44 1/4 × 2 3/4 in.) — carries its own history of handling and restoration. Salvator Rosa's brushwork here moves between exacting description and looser, more suggestive passages, a balance typical of Baroque studio practice.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. Grief here is choreographed: hands, drapery, and gaze are arranged to guide sympathy rather than simply record a scene.

Today the painting is held by Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, where it remains a touchstone for understanding Salvator Rosa's contribution to Western art. It has been studied, copied, restored, and argued over for centuries — proof that great paintings keep generating new readings long after their creators have gone.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”

From the museum

Wentworth Greene Field Memorial Fund

Materials & technique

Technique: oil painting, painting techniques, painting (image making), painting.

Inscriptions: Inscribed lower right, in ligature: SR.

Provenance

Bonaventura Argenti (died 1697), Rome; by descent to Argenti’s heirs, Rome 1697 to 1698 [“Due quardri da Quattro palmi in circa, con due Historie di Policrate cornice dorata di Salvator Rosa, 250 Scudi“ (Two pictures, each about four palms across, with two histories of Policrates framed in gold by Salvator Rosa, 250 Scudi); Giuseppe Ghezzi, “Quadri delle case de Prencipi in Roma,” 1686–1717, MS. 93, Palazzo Braschi, Rome, c. 283; published by Meroni 1978, p. 89 and de Marchi 1987, pp. 384, 392–93]; consigned for sale to Giuseppe Ghezzi, Rome, about 1698 [see Ghezzi 1686–1717 cited above]. Probably 2nd Earl of Warwick, (Warwick Castle) by 1801 [auction of June 1, 1801 at Christie’s, bought in; see Fredericksen and Zeri 1972]. Schaeffer Galleries, New York, 1942 [see New York 1942, no. 30]. A. F. Mondschein, New York by 1942; sold to the Art Institute, 1942.