This painting is a quite elaborate and finished study of the figure of the decimvir Appius Claudius and of his entourage with the lictors, who stand out on the left side of the monumental canvas of the Death of Virginia painted by Vincenzo Camuccini between the 1799 ad the 1804, today housed in the Museum of Capodimonte in Naples.

In respect to the painting in Naples and the very beautiful signed d’apres held in the Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi in Lucca (in all ways identical to the painting in Capodimonte), this small canvas-cropped on all sides by approximately 0,39 inch by an old reframing around which is stretched the original canvas-shows few but significant compositional variations.

Excerpt of the expertise by prof. Francesco Leone in the catalogue of the exhibition “Metamorphosis of the Nude”, 2019.