The meeting between Alexander and Diogenes is one of the most discussed and, in a certain sense, controversial of all the encounters of antiquity. Oscillating between reality and legend, it was certainly an event that stimulated the imagination of artists, and Sebastiano Ricci was undoubtedly among those best able to evoke it with the greatest inventiveness. The artist from Belluno illustrated his great skills and highest quality when drawing on the encounter at various points in his artistic career. Worthy of particular mention is the painting now in the Galleria Nazionale in Parma, part of an important cycle painted by the artist at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and the drawing in the Ricci album in the Cabinet of Drawings in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, which can be compared to our painting, especially because of the similarities in the armiger behind Alexander and the bystander looking out from behind the barrel.

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