Allegory of Peace and the Arts under the Barberini Pontificate

In 1627, under Pope Urban VIII, an inventory of the Barberini collection recorded this huge canvas, three and a half metres tall, as the work of the brother of the Cavalier Muti. The Muti were a Roman noble family, and the brother has never been identified for certain. The museum's catalogue now names two hands, Charles Mellin, a painter from Lorraine working in Rome, and that brother, either Prospero or Marcantonio Muti. For a long time the picture went under the name of Simon Vouet, the French painter then at work in Rome, and a study of 1996 still allows for his touch in the figure on the right. The subject is open praise of the family, peace and the arts flourishing under the Barberini pope. It has been suggested that the theme came from the poet Francesco Bracciolini, who devised the programme for Pietro da Cortona's great ceiling in this palace, painted a few years later. One account says the brother of the Cavalier Muti vanished from the Roman scene right after Vouet went back to France.