This painting belongs to the Neapolitan group of scenes of ancient Roman life that were ordered in the early to mid 1630s by the Viceroy of Naples, the Count of Monterrey, to decorate the Buen Retiro Palace on the outskirts of Madrid.

The painting underscores Lanfranco’s extraordinary powers of inventiveness and productivity during a period in which he was otherwise thoroughly preoccupied with a succession of largescale Neapolitan public commissions. His rival, Domenichino, for example, had only been able to complete one work for this series -Funeral of a Roman Emperor- before needing to return to his major undertaking at the Cappella del Tesoro of Naples Cathedral. Lanfranco, on the other hand, was able to complete all six canvases while working on the cupola and pendentives of the Jesuit church of the Gesù Nuovo (1634-36); an extensive series of frescoes for the Carthusian church of the Certosa di San Martino (1637-39); frescoes and altarpieces for Pozzuoli Cathedral (1638-46); the decoration of almost the entire church of the Theatines at Santi Apostoli (1639-46); and frescoes for the cupola of the Cappella del Tesoro, Naples Cathedral, the last of which he was able to secure following Domenichino’s death in 1641.

A Priest sacrificing for a Roman Emperor, c.1635, has been painted in a deliberately schematic and in places sketchy manner that typifies Lanfranco’s late style. Other artists contributing to the Buen Retiro commission were careful to include painstakingly constructed architectural settings to lend credibility and historical verisimilitude to their scenes. Viviano Codazzi and Domenico Gargiulo’s Perspectival view of a Roman amphitheatre, c.1638, is a particularly prominent example, but other artists, from Aniello Falcone to Giovanni Francesco Romanelli, added comparably elaborate architectural backgrounds to their contributions. Lanfranco, by contrast, deliberately suppressed the background, keeping the composition dark and shallow. This enabled him to fill the canvas with dramatically gesturing monumental figures that seem to loom out of the shadows, almost as if they were an ancient Roman relief sculpture come suddenly to life. It was an approach that grew out of the rapid and economic style that Lanfranco developed during this period in order to maximise productivity and keep up with his many commitments.

The approach is also evident, for example, in the similarly schematic backgrounds and sketchy, almost floating figures that the artist produced for his large altarpieces at Pozzuoli Cathedral and Santi Apostoli.

Lanfranco’s biographer, Giovanni Pietro Bellori, was struck by this aspect of his oeuvre, noting, nor was there anyone in his time who completed large works with more beautiful and more harmonious facility, without a trace of difficulty of invention or hesitation of the brush. This suavely assured and economical style would prove especially influential for the young Luca Giordano in the years that followed. During the mid to late 1650s, Giordano developed a versatile style characterised by extraordinary fluidity and facility that earned him the nickname Luca Fapresto (Luca do it quickly). This was to prove especially helpful to Giordano when he became the first Neapolitan not simply to send his paintings across the sea to Madrid, but to make the trip for himself in order to serve as court painter to Philip IV’s successor, King Charles II, where he went on to produce a vast array of frescoes and canvases from 1692 to 1702, towards the end of a long and prodigiously productive career (Text drawn from M. C.: Italian Masterpieces. From Spain´s Royal Court, Museo del Prado, 2014, p. 198).