Dispute with the Doctors

Material, technology: oil, canvas

Size: 424 x 195 cm

Description: The elegant vaulting and curtain, the restraint in the rendering of the figures, their lucid grouping suggest the painter’s bent for classicism. Inscriptions and documents reveal that Antonio Zanchi was contracted to paint five pictures for the cathedral of Capodistria (Istria) on July 15, 1679. He was paid 1240 lire on November 10 for "Dispute with the Doctors" and "The baptism of Christ", and another 1468 lire on April 30, 1780, for the "Marriage in Cana", "The healing of the paralytic" and the "Flagellation" (presumably mistaken for the "Cleansing of the Temple"). The "Marriage at Cana" with reminiscences of Tintoretto and Veronese is still in its place, on the north wall of the cathedral choir, and the "The healing of the paralytic" of lying format, composed with the robust back of a nude as its centre, is preserved at the Academy in Vienna.