Italian school; mid-17th century. "The Death of Jezebel". Oil on canvas. Re-framed. Size: 162 x 113 cm; 173 x 125 cm (frame). A dejected woman, on the ground, lying on the ground, is harassed by two dogs that approach her curiously. The young woman, who stands out for her monumentality and her rotund dimensions, is dressed in rich clothes and jewels, which show the spectator the social position of this woman, in spite of her tragic end. In a theatrical scene, the subject, the composition and the atornasolated colours, the protagonist captures the viewer's attention, despite the surrounding landscape. She is Jezebel, a queen of ancient Israel whose story is told in the Books of Kings I and II: she is known for leading the monarch Ahab away from the true God, causing him to worship pagan divinities (Baal); after Ahab's death, Jezebel continued to rule through her son Ahaziah, maintaining the cult of the Semitic pantheon. When Ahaziah died after falling out of a window and dying for a few days, she continued to exercise control through her other son, Jehoram. In the book of Kings it is recorded that Yahweh, speaking through the prophet Elisha, placed one of his servants, Jehu, as king in place of Jehoram. The usurper Jehu attacks Jezebel in Jezrael and encourages his eunuchs to murder the queen by throwing her out of the window. They carry out the order, leaving Jezebel in the street to be devoured by dogs. According to the Bible, only Jezebel's skull, feet and hands remain. Formally, this work is dominated by the influence of the Roman-Bolognese classicism of the Carracci and their followers, one of the two major trends of the Italian Baroque, together with Caravaggio's naturalism. Thus, the figure shows monumental dimensions, a clear idealisation of the face and serene, balanced gestures, despite the subject matter being depicted. It is thus an idealised representation based on classical canons. The rhetoric of the gestures, theatrical and eloquent, clearly baroque, is also typical of 17th-century Italian classicism. It is also worth noting the importance of the chromatic aspect, which is very well thought out, centred on basic shades of red, ochre and blue, although it is worth mentioning that the work reflects a certain Tenebrist influence, contrasting the illuminated areas with others that are completely dark, as can be seen, for example, in the face of the main character. On a compositional level, it is worth noting how all the characters, i.e. Jezebel and the dogs that surround her, are placed practically on the same plane, separated from the viewer by a certain amount of space, equidistant from the background. Dimensions 162 x 113 cm; 173 x 125 cm (frame).