Country Dance

In 1892, after the Borghese family's fortune collapsed, the contents of their palace in Rome went up for sale. This small canvas was catalogued as Flemish school, and then it disappeared. It was already in Cardinal Scipione Borghese's collection before 1633, and later guides to his pictures gave it to Guido Reni. It surfaced at Bonhams in London in 2008, labelled the work of an anonymous Bolognese painter. Scholars matched it to the old descriptions, and in 2020 the gallery bought it back for about 800,000 euros. Reni painted it around 1601 or 1602. Peasants dance to a lute and a viola in hill country while local ladies and gentlemen look on. A young countryman invites a lady to open the dance. High in the sky Reni also painted two flies, as if they had landed on the canvas.