modello by Sebastiano Mazzoni?

  Photo credit: Wolverhampton Arts and Heritage  

   This unattributed painting from Wolverhampton strikes me as a possible work by Sebastiano Mazzoni. His characteristic unusual dynamism is quite evident here. The pose of the woman with her head turned back who is raising her right hand so expressively can be compared with that of the kneeling woman in "The Sacrifice of Jephthah's Daughter":

left image  "The Sacrifice of Jephthah's Daughter" (detail)

   The treatment of the drapery seems to support this hypothesis as well. Moreover the motif of the bald-headed courtier pictured left of the king is repeated in another painting associated with Mazzoni:

Circle of Sebastiano Mazzoni. Scene of Sacrifice. 1660s. Detroit Institute of Arts. Gift of John M. Frank.

   Finally the focus on the architectural details and the presence of the statue in the upper central part of the composition bring this modello very close to the painting in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts that bears an attribution to the circle of Sebastiano Mazzoni. Needless to say that the placement of the statue against a sky background is the exact same for "The Sacrifice of Jephthah's Daughter" by Mazzoni.