The infant Moses casting the Pharaoh’s crown to the ground

The subject of this drawing is taken from De Antiquitate Judaica written by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (vol. 2, 9). The Pharaoh’s daughter, who had raised Moses after having found him on the banks of the Nile, decided to enter the boy in the succession for the throne. When her father tried to place the crown of Egypt on Moses’ head, the boy suddenly threw it to the ground and trampled it. The scribe, the man at the center of the composition, having witnessed the boy's irreverent gesture attempted to kill him.

In his drawing, Giani vividly captured the theatricality of the dramatic scene set in imaginary Egyptian scenery. Pyramids, fanciful hieroglyphs carved on the walls, palms and elephants create the setting. Anna Ottani Cavina (exhib. cat., Philadelphia and Houston, op. cit., no. 359) has suggested the drawing dates to the 1790s and placed its creation in the context of the Accademia dei Pensieri, an informal academy at the artist's home in Rome, where artists gathered in the evening and produced drawings on a given theme. The purpose of the academy was to promote friendly competition among those present and have them practice their skills. Although it is not known exactly what the themes and the drawings created in these competitions were, it is very probably that the unusual episode from Moses' youth was chosen to stimulate the imagination of the artists. Later in his life, Giani founded similar academies in Faenza and Bologna. These gatherings explain not only the artist’s preoccupation with teaching, but also his activity as an improvisational poet (R.J.T. Olson, ‘Review of Felice Giani, 1758-1823, e la cultura di fine secolo by Anna Ottani Cavina,’ Master Drawings, XXXIX, no. 4, 2001, pp. 425-430).