Pietro della VECCHIA Vicenza, 1603 - Venice, 1678 Soldiers playing the morra game Oil on softwood panel Annotated 'Della raccolta del / Cardinal Fesch / Roma' on verso N° 79 in ink on verso Annotated 'autore della pitura / Gi Barbaveli veneto / 1502' on verso (Restorations) No frame Soldiers playing the game of the morra, oil on resin wood panel, annotated, by P. Della Vecchia 29 x 33 cm (11,42 x 12,99 in.) Provenance: Collection of Cardinal Fesch, Rome, 1839 (according to an inscription on the reverse); Collection of Dr. Rittmann-Urech, Basel; His sale, Cologne, Lempertz, 30 April 1912, no. 37 (as Giorgio Barbarelli di Castelfranco, known as Giorgione); Private collection, Berlin; Anonymous sale; Vienna, Dorotheum, 18 December 2019, no. 382 ; Acquired at this sale by the current owner Bibliography: Bernard Aikema, 'Pietro della Vecchia et l'héritage de la Renaissance à Venise', Florence, 1990, p. 145, no. 188, ill. 147. Comment: This work came from the collection of Dr Rittmann-Urech, which was sold on 30 April 1912 by Lampertz in Cologne. The catalogue states that the painting was formerly in the gallery of Cardinal Fesch in Rome and that it was bought by Dr. Rittmann-Urech with an attribution to Giorgione. However, the 1841 catalogue of Cardinal Fesch's paintings lists only one work by Giorgione, an 'Adoration of the Shepherds' (no. 644). The number 79 on the reverse of the painting no doubt refers to the painting listed in the catalogue of the Fesch collection under the following title: 'Cavaliers en compagnie et partant pour la chasse'. The painting must therefore have been given to Giorgione at a later date. This pretty little panel shows the game of morra, a finger game. The players present a certain number of fingers simultaneously, the aim being to predict the number of fingers presented by each player. This game seems to have been played as far back as antiquity in Egypt and seems to have enjoyed a certain success throughout the Mediterranean. The practice was first mentioned by the Greeks and then in Renaissance France: Rabelais mentions it in 'Pantagruel' (Book IV, Chapter XIV). Here, the Venetian artist Pietro della Vecchia shows a group of soldiers playing in a landscape reminiscent of Venetian painting in the previous century. This painting is registered in the photo library of the Fondazione Zeri under no. 59054.