The Defeat of Sisera

In June 1690 Giordano took his first payment for the dome of Donnaromita, a convent church in Naples. The subject named in the papers was the story of Deborah and Sisera, from the book of Judges. Two years later the Spanish king called him to Madrid. He went, and the dome was left to his pupils, who finished it in 1696.

This canvas belongs to that departure, around 1692. It has been called a modello for the fresco, and also a model left behind for the men who had to complete it, and the question is open.

The battle is at its end. Barak's men drive the Canaanites into the brook Kishon while Sisera, thrown from his chariot in the middle of the picture, twists towards the angels above him. They are there for what comes next. He will escape on foot to the tent of Jael, who kills him in his sleep with a tent peg.

In the bottom right corner there is a small yellow 233, the number this canvas carried in the 1772 inventory of the Royal Palace in Madrid.