La perdida ‘Fábula de Baco’ de José de Ribera para Felipe IV: observaciones sobre su iconografía, los fragmentos y la versión Laserna

In this article, the author summarises the history of the Fable of Bacchus which Jusepe de Ribera painted in Naples around 1635, under commission of the Count of Monterrey, for the court of Philip IV. After the destruction of the canvas in the fire of the Alcázar of Madrid in 1734, four and then three fragments remained, the history of which is also traced up to the present day. Their comparison and the examination of a version of the painting, now in the Laserna Jaramillo collection, offers an opportunity to discuss the iconographic interpretations that the work has received over the centuries, particularly in relation to a well-known Hellenistic relief depicting a Theoxenia of Dionysus that served as a model for Ribera. It can be concluded that the artist used it in a completely autonomous manner with respect to its authentic and for him incomprehensible meaning, introducing a veiled admonition about the uncertainty of political fortune to the Count of Monterrey, whose portrait is recognisable as one of the severed heads in the foreground. Finally, a direct observation of the Laserna version, the only one that has come down to us of the original composition, allows us to reconsider the possibility that we are looking not at a copy made in Spain, but at a replica made in Naples in the artist's own workshop.