The Fall of Lucifer

When the Borghese pictures were listed in 1790, this canvas went down as a Tintoretto, and the inventory of 1833 repeated the name. Only in 1891 was it given to Palma il Giovane, the Venetian painter who worked on into the 1620s, and that attribution has stood unchallenged ever since. The picture is fairly small for its subject, about 127 centimetres wide, and the brushwork is quick and fluid. That is why scholars have read it as a sketch, a trial run for a bigger canvas. Up in the golden light God the Father flings out his arms, and the ranks of angels below seem to swing into motion from that one gesture. The rebels pile up along the bottom edge. For a war in heaven the colours stay surprisingly light, pinks, blues and gold, something the gallery's own catalogue points out too.