''Bathers at San Niccolò'' is a large oil painting by Domenico Cresti, known as Domenico Passignano, signed and dated 1600. The Mannerist painting depicts men bathing in the

River Arno The Arno is a river in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the most important river of central Italy after the Tiber. Source and route The river originates on Monte Falterona in the Casentino area of the Apennines, and initially takes a sou ...

near the crenelated Tower of San Niccolò in Florence. The subject is a departure from Passignano's usual oeuvre of religious, mythological, and historical paintings. The depictions draw on earlier works depicting naked people, such as religious paintings of the torments of

Hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...

. The painting may also draw on a pair of engravings by

Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer (; ; hu, Ajtósi Adalbert; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer (without an umlaut) or Due ...

of bathing men and women, and paintings of public baths made by

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was insp ...

and Leonardo da Vinci, particularly Michelangelo's uncompleted (and now lost) fresco of the

Battle of Cascina The Battle of Cascina was an engagement between Pisan and Florentine troops on 28 July 1364 near Cascina, modern-day Italy. Florence's victory followed a recent defeat to Pisan forces that had enabled mercenary John Hawkwood, who was in comman ...

made for the Room of the Great Council now the

Salone dei Cinquecento The Palazzo Vecchio ( "Old Palace") is the City hall, town hall of Florence, Italy. It overlooks the Piazza della Signoria, which holds a copy of Michelangelo's ''David (Michelangelo), David'' statue, and the gallery of statues in the adjacent ...

) at the

Palazzo Vecchio The Palazzo Vecchio ( "Old Palace") is the City hall, town hall of Florence, Italy. It overlooks the Piazza della Signoria, which holds a copy of Michelangelo's ''David (Michelangelo), David'' statue, and the gallery of statues in the adjacent ...

in Florence between 1504 and 1508, known from engravings of the (also lost) cartoon. The battle was fought on a hot summer's day, so the Florentine soldiers removed their armour to bathe in the river: the

Pisa Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the cit ...

ns attempted to launch a surprise attack, but the refreshed Florentines were warned of the approaching Pisans and re-armed themselves in time to defeat their tired enemies. Passignano made a number of preliminary drawings in red chalk, perhaps made from life, some of which are held by the Uffizi and

the Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

. The completed oil painting depicts a number of muscular men in or beside the river: stripping off, entering and leaving the water, bathing, conversing, and embracing. It measures {{cvt, 56, x, 71, in, cm and is signed and dated lower center: "OP^s. DOM^CI. PASSIGNANI / FLO MDC". The provenance of the painting before the mid-20th century is uncertain. It may have influenced a c.1630 engraving of a similar bathing scene by Jacques Callot. It may be a work mentioned in a catalogue by

Filippo Baldinucci Filippo Baldinucci (3 June 1625 – 10 January 1696) was an Italian art historian and biographer. Life Baldinucci is considered among the most significant Florentine biographers/historians of the artists and the arts of the Baroque period ...

published posthumously in 1728, as being owned by Filippo di Lorenzo Niccolini, third Marchese di Ponsacco e Camugliano (1655–1738), in Florence in the late 17th century. It appeared with the art dealers Reid and Lefevre in London by 1959, and passed through several private collections, before being sold at Sotheby's in New York City in 2017 for US$732,500. The auction catalogue described it as "perhaps the most important artistic example of homoerotic art of the late Mannerist period", anticipating by 300 years paintings such as Thomas Eakins's ''

The Swimming Hole ''The Swimming Hole'' (also known as ''Swimming'' and ''The Old Swimming Hole'') is an 1884–85 painting by the American artist Thomas Eakins (1844–1916), Goodrich catalog #190, in the collection of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art i ...

''. File:View of Ancient Florence by Fabio Borbottoni 1820-1902 (17).jpg, Tower of San Niccolò in the 19th century File:Albrecht Dürer - Das Frauenbad (1496).jpg,

, ''The Women's Bath'' (''Das Frauenbad''), c.1496 File:Albrecht Dürer - The Men’s Bath - Google Art Project.jpg,

, ''The Men's Bath'' (''Das Männerbad''), c.1496 File:Battagliadicascina.jpg, Copy of Michelangelo's ''

'' by his pupil Aristotele da Sangallo, c.1542 File:Jacques Callot, The Bathers, probably c. 1630, NGA 51182.jpg, Jacques Callot, ''The Bathers'', c.1630 File:Swimming hole.jpg, Thomas Eakins, ''

'', 1884–85

References

Domenico Cresti, called Passignano, ''Bathers at San Niccolò''
Sotheby's, 25 January 2017
''The Bathers at San Niccolò''
Patricia Rubin, Sotheby's, 9 January 2017
''Raphael to Renoir: Drawings from the Collection of Jean Bonna''
Stijn Alsteens, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009, p.124-5 1600 paintings Mannerist paintings