Abstract
The author of this contribution refers to the connection between Anton Kern's painting Virgin with St. Wenceslaus, Antonius from Padua and Margaret from the National Gallery in Prague with the altarpiece of Carlo Maratti in the Spada chapel in the Roman church Chiesa Nuova.
Both paintings depict a Madonna adored by the saints in the compositional style "sacra conversazione" and the placement of figures of the saints is also extremely similar. It seems to be evident that Anton Kern was inspired by the composition of Maratti.
The actual research has emphasized Kern's dependence on his Venetian master Giovanni Battista Pittoni, who supposedly prepared the type of figures for Kern's composition as show some of his drawings. The newly suggested relationship between Kern and Maratti's paintings admits that it was Anton Kern who brought this type of composition to Venice and Central Europe.
Kern visited Rome in 1740, while according to available documents Pittoni had never been to this city. Maratti's altarpiece in Spada chapel could be mediated to Pittoni through Anton Kern's drawings, because Maratti's painting had not been known in graphic reproduction.
If Kern was inspired by Maratti's canvas in Rome, there was a need to newly date his above-mentioned painting into to the period after 1740, when he turned back to Dresden.