Belshazzar's Feast by Caracciolo, L (copy after Jose Ribera)

The Catalogue Record

The catalogue record for this object gives the work a single identifying title, 'Belshazzar's Feast', and names Caracciolo, L. as the maker. The same record immediately qualifies that attribution: it describes the painting not as an independent invention but as Caracciolo's copy after an original 'Belshazzar's Feast' by Jose Ribera. The attribution and the qualification therefore belong together as one catalogue statement rather than two competing claims. This matters for how the object is studied, because the record establishes a named copyist and a named inventor of the composition without establishing which hand executed any particular passage of the surface. It also means the picture occupies a documented position in a reproductive relationship, in which the design is credited to Ribera and a later practitioner is credited with reproducing it.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022, Summary, Title, Creator; Summary, Description)

Within this record there is a distinction worth preserving between the date of the object and the date of the catalogue data. The object is a painting, catalogued under the title 'Belshazzar's Feast' by Caracciolo, L., as a copy after Jose Ribera, whereas the Wikimedia Commons file that carries this information has a publication year of 2022. That later date belongs to the digital record and its metadata, not to the making of the canvas. The record as supplied does not state a date of execution for the painting, nor does it give support, dimensions, inscriptions, or accession identifiers for the physical object. Those catalogue categories remain unfilled in the available evidence, and the absence is itself part of the object's documented profile. Confusing the 2022 publication of the file with the historical period of the painting would misstate the evidence, since the two dates describe entirely different events in the object's life.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022, Summary, Title, Creator; Summary, Description)

Collection and Digital Provenance

Interpretation

Taken together, the evidence supports a narrow but coherent account: a painting titled 'Belshazzar's Feast', recorded under the name Caracciolo, L., described as a copy after an original by Jose Ribera, depicting the biblical feast at which the writing appeared on the wall, held in the Camp Chesterfield collection, and made public through a digital library cooperation. The copy qualification is the most consequential element of the record, because it directs attention to Ribera's invention as the compositional source while leaving the execution attributed to Caracciolo. At the same time, the record leaves the painting's own date, support, dimensions, inscriptions, and accession identifiers unspecified, and it supplies no earlier provenance. These gaps are not minor omissions but define the limits of what the present account can claim. The object matters within a larger history of art and material culture precisely because it documents a reproductive practice, in which a named painter reproduced a composition credited to another, and because its surviving documentation is a modern institutional and digital one rather than an early archival one. Reading the attribution alongside the gaps keeps the catalogue description in proportion: it is a starting point for research, not a complete account of the painting.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022, Summary, Title, Creator; Summary, Description; Summary, Source/Photographer)

The exact-object record identifies this painting as 'Belshazzar's Feast' by Caracciolo, L.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022)

The record describes the work as Caracciolo's copy of the original 'Belshazzar's Feast' by Jose Ribera.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022)

The record of the scene

Visual observation

The recording of this canvas in the Wikimedia Commons file names its subject through the structured data 'depicts' field, which returns Camp Chesterfield, Belshazzar and Belshazzar's Feast together as the entities the file portrays. That field is a controlled indexing statement rather than a visual description: it establishes the person Belshazzar, the narrative titled Belshazzar's Feast, and the collecting institution Camp Chesterfield as the linked subjects, and it tells us nothing yet about how the guests are arranged, how the king gestures, where the writing appears on the wall, or what furniture and hangings fill the room. Read alongside the file record, the same source also attaches the scene to the feast at which the handwriting appeared on the wall, so the narrative core of the image is the divine writing interrupting a banquet. Any account of the composition has to be separated from this indexing layer, because the structured field supplies identification, not observation.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022, Structured data, Items portrayed in this file; Summary, Description)

Attribution and the copy

The record identifies the work as Belshazzar's Feast by Caracciolo, L., and in the same breath describes the canvas as a copy after an original Belshazzar's Feast by Jose Ribera. The two statements have to be held together: Caracciolo's name governs the execution of this object, while Ribera's name governs the invention that this object reproduces. That qualification has direct consequences for looking, because composition, illumination and the disposition of figures may belong to Ribera's design while the handling of paint belongs to the copyist, and the file as supplied does not separate the two. It gives no date, no medium or support statement, and no measurements for the painting itself, so the attribution rests on the catalogue record rather than on any internally documented inscription, signature or provenance chain reproduced here.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022, Structured data, Items portrayed in this file)

The file depicts Camp Chesterfield, Belshazzar, and Belshazzar's Feast, according to the structured data 'depicts' field.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022)

Subject and attribution

Visual observation

The exact-object record identifies this painting as 'Belshazzar's Feast' by Caracciolo, L., and describes the work as Caracciolo's copy of the original 'Belshazzar's Feast' by Jose Ribera. That double naming governs everything else in the account: the picture is catalogued under a copyist's name, while the invention it reproduces is credited to Ribera's. The record's summary states that the painting depicts the famous feast at which the handwriting appeared on the wall, so the subject is named directly in the documentation rather than inferred from the image alone. The same source groups three subject descriptors in its structured data, and the work is recorded as belonging to the Camp Chesterfield collection in Chesterfield, United States.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022, Summary, Description; Structured data, Items portrayed in this file)

The painting depicts the famous feast at which the handwriting appeared on the wall.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022)

Technical analysis

Visual observation

The technical record for this work begins with the digital surrogate rather than the canvas. The supplied image file is a JPEG measuring 6,476 by 8,600 pixels, with a file size of 8,992,073 bytes. At that resolution the surrogate carries far more pixel information than any screen display or printed reproduction would show at once, which matters for a study of a painting described in the record as a copy: fine details of handling, colour transitions and surface condition survive in the file at a scale that supports close comparison, even though the file itself is not the object. The same structured record that supplies these file properties also states what the file depicts, naming Camp Chesterfield, Belshazzar and Belshazzar's Feast in its depicts field. The pixel dimensions and byte count are therefore the only quantitative technical facts currently attached to this object in the supplied evidence, and they describe the photograph, not the painting. No condition report, pigment analysis, radiograph, infrared image or conservation record is present among the supplied units, so nothing can yet be said from this evidence about the painting's materials, support, age or treatment history.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022, File information, Structured data; Structured data, Items portrayed in this file)

Interpretation

The examination of this object is at an early documentary stage rather than a laboratory stage. What the supplied evidence establishes is a chain of description and custody: the structured data records the title, the attribution as a copy after Jose Ribera under the name Caracciolo, L., the subject of the feast with the writing on the wall, and the present location in the Camp Chesterfield collection in Chesterfield, United States. It also records that the file reached Wikimedia Commons through a contribution by Camp Chesterfield, in a cooperation project facilitated by the Digital Public Library of America via its partner Indiana Memory, and that the media file is in the public domain in the United States. Each of these is a statement about identification, attribution or digital custody. None of them is a measurement of the painting. The gap between the two kinds of statement should be kept visible in any technical account, because the attribution to Caracciolo as a copyist of Ribera is a proposed explanation carried in catalogue data, while the pixel dimensions are an observed property of the file. The two are not equivalent in evidential weight, and the supplied material does not include the comparison of works, signatures, documents or analyses that would independently test the attribution.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022, File information, Structured data)

Visual observation

The qualification attached to the attribution shapes what a technical study of this object would be for. The record presents the painting not as Ribera's own hand but as Caracciolo's copy of an original Belshazzar's Feast by Ribera, and the transcript of the object record repeats that qualification. In technical terms, a copy is a different object of study from an original: composition and lighting may reflect Ribera's invention while execution reflects the copyist, so any future examination would need to distinguish invention from execution rather than treat the whole surface as one authorial performance. The supplied evidence does not contain that examination. It contains the attribution and the qualification, and it leaves the painting's date, dimensions, support, materials and compositional detail to be established elsewhere. The honest technical summary of this object at present is therefore a statement of what is documented about the file and the catalogue record, together with an explicit acknowledgement that the physical evidence required to characterise the painting has not been supplied.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022, File information, Structured data; Structured data, Items portrayed in this file)

Technical examination

The image file is a JPEG with dimensions 6,476 by 8,600 pixels and a file size of 8,992,073 bytes.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022)

The Record and Its Channel

The file that carries this painting into the public record reached Wikimedia Commons through a specific institutional channel rather than through a private upload. Camp Chesterfield contributed the file, and the transfer was facilitated by the Digital Public Library of America working through its partner Indiana Memory. This contribution history documents how the image entered the public record and who supplied it; it does not itself establish when or how the painting came into the Chesterfield collection, so the earlier ownership of the work remains unrecorded in the supplied evidence. The same record places the painting in the Camp Chesterfield collection in Chesterfield, in the United States, which is the only information the evidence gives about the work's present situation.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022, Summary, Source/Photographer)

The painting's documented present location and the documented channel by which its image was published are two distinct facts, and the evidence supports only the second in any procedural detail. The cooperation project run through the Digital Public Library of America and Indiana Memory accounts for the route by which the photograph of the canvas became publicly accessible, while the collection statement accounts for where the object sits now. Nothing in the supplied units names an owner prior to the Chesterfield collection, records a sale, a gift, a bequest or an accession number, or supplies a date of transfer. The interval before Chesterfield is therefore an unrecorded interval, not a documented change of ownership, and the two should not be conflated.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022, Summary, Source/Photographer)

Subject and Attribution

Interpretation

What the documentation holds together is a title, an attributed copyist, a named original author, a subject, and a collection. What it leaves open is equally notable: no date of execution for the copy, no dimensions of the canvas, no account of the composition, the arrangement of guests, the gestures or the placement of the writing, and no earlier provenance. The media file itself is a JPEG of 6,476 by 8,600 pixels and 8,992,073 bytes, and that file is in the public domain in the United States; those technical and rights statements describe the reproduction and its legal status, not the painting's own history. Reading these facts together, the object's documented life begins effectively with its presence at Camp Chesterfield and with the publication of its image, while its earlier movements and the circumstances of its making as a copy remain outside what the supplied evidence establishes.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022, Summary, Description; Summary, Source/Photographer)

The file was contributed to Wikimedia Commons by Camp Chesterfield through a cooperation project facilitated by the Digital Public Library of America, via its partner Indiana Memory.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022)

The Openly Circulated Reproduction

The reception of this file begins with its status as a media document rather than with the painting's own early life. The Wikimedia Commons record states that the media file is in the public domain in the United States, a rights determination that governs how the image may be reused and republished. That determination applies to the file itself, and the record does not extend it into a claim about the copyright status of the underlying canvas or about any earlier publication of the composition. What the public domain notice establishes is that the reproduction has been made available for further circulation without the permission barriers that would otherwise restrict reuse. For an object known mainly through a single institutional photograph, that openness is a reception condition in its own right: it allows the image to travel into teaching, research and other publications independently of the physical painting's location.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022, Permission (Reusing this file))

Interpretation

Read together, the units describe a painting whose documented public life runs through a modern institutional and digital channel. The object record names the subject directly and identifies the work as Belshazzar's Feast by Caracciolo, L.; the same record notes that it now sits in the Camp Chesterfield collection in Chesterfield, in the United States; and the file record documents the contribution that placed a high-resolution image of it in the public domain. The image file is a JPEG of 6,476 by 8,600 pixels and 8,992,073 bytes, so the circulating reproduction is large enough to support close study of surfaces and details at a distance. That technical capacity matters for reception: a copy after another painter is precisely the kind of object whose interest lies in comparison, and a file of this resolution permits such comparison without access to the canvas. What the evidence does not supply is any earlier exhibition history, sale record or critical commentary; the reception documented here is that of an institutional collection making a work public through a national digital library programme.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022, Permission (Reusing this file); Summary, Source/Photographer; Summary, Description; Structured data, Items portrayed in this file)

The media file is in the public domain in the United States.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022)

The Camp Chesterfield picture and its public record

The painting is held in the Camp Chesterfield collection in Chesterfield, United States, and that location is one of the few facts the supplied record states about the work's present situation. The same file record is the source of the image itself in the public domain: the media file is a JPEG measuring 6,476 by 8,600 pixels with a file size of 8,992,073 bytes, and it is in the public domain in the United States. The file was contributed to Wikimedia Commons by Camp Chesterfield through a cooperation project facilitated by the Digital Public Library of America, working through its partner Indiana Memory. This contribution history explains how the image entered the public record and how the object became accessible to research at high resolution; it does not establish where the painting was before it entered the Chesterfield collection, and no provenance interval is supplied.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022, Summary, Collection, Location)

The work is in the Camp Chesterfield collection, Chesterfield, United States.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022)

The object and its attribution

Interpretation

The object at the centre of this record is a painting titled Belshazzar's Feast, identified in the exact-object record as by Caracciolo, L., and described as a copy after an original of the same subject by Jose Ribera. The attribution is therefore qualified at the point of naming: the work is not presented as Ribera's own hand but as Caracciolo's copy of his invention. The record also fixes the subject as the biblical feast at which the handwriting appeared on the wall, and the structured data for the file records that the image depicts Belshazzar and Belshazzar's Feast. That structured identification of figures and scene is the extent of the record's description: the supplied source does not describe the composition, the arrangement of guests, the gestures, or the placement of the writing, so those visual particulars remain to be established from the image itself or from other documentation.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022)

The work is held in the Camp Chesterfield collection in Chesterfield, United States, one of the few facts the supplied sources give about its present situation. The media file reached Wikimedia Commons through a contribution by Camp Chesterfield, in a cooperation project facilitated by the Digital Public Library of America via its partner Indiana Memory, and the file is recorded as in the public domain in the United States. This contribution history explains how the image entered the public record; it does not establish where the painting was before it entered the Chesterfield collection. The image itself is a JPEG measuring 6,476 by 8,600 pixels with a file size of 8,992,073 bytes, a specification consistent with a high-resolution digitisation rather than a casual photograph.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022)

The record treats the feast as a known biblical narrative rather than a documented historical occasion, which is consistent with how such subjects are normally described in catalogue entries. The title points to the episode, and the handwriting on the wall is the event the record names as the subject. Because the record supplies no date, dimensions, support, provenance, condition, or exhibition history, the account of the object currently rests on title, attribution, subject and present location alone. Those absences are themselves part of the evidential situation and should not be filled in without further documentation.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022)

The working insurance estimate and its limits

A working insurance estimate has been recorded for this painting, but its status needs to be stated precisely. It is a model-generated working insurance range of US$3K to US$15K, set down as a working calculation generated 2026-10-16 for manual review. It is not an official insurance value, an appraisal, an auction result, or a sale price, and it does not constitute a certified valuation; the record itself advises against relying on it for binding insurance, tax, estate, or financial purposes. The methodology was to derive a broad range conservatively, treating the painting as a modestly valued old-master-style copy of unknown date and scale, because no documented sale records, comparable auction results, or formal appraisal were available. The range is deliberately broad to absorb the high uncertainty in attribution, condition, size and market, and it is not based on private insurance records or verified comparable sales. Independent professional appraisal is recommended before any coverage decision.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022)

Read together, these records distinguish three different kinds of statement about the same object. The title, the qualified attribution to Caracciolo as a copy after Ribera, the subject, the Chesterfield location and the Wikimedia Commons contribution history are documented in the object record. The judgement that the picture is a modestly valued copy, and the dollar range that follows from it, is a recorded interpretation generated for a specific practical purpose and expressly marked as provisional. The missing date, dimensions, support, provenance, condition and exhibition history are recorded absences. Keeping these categories apart matters because the attribution as a copy is the single fact that most constrains value in the working estimate, yet the evidence behind that attribution is a qualification in a file record, and the scale and condition of the painting are unknown. Until the physical object is documented, the painting's place in the history of Ribera's reception and of later copying practice can be described in terms of its claimed relationship to a Ribera invention, but not demonstrated from the supplied material.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022)

Working estimate

Calculated working insurance estimate, not a sale price: Working insurance range: US$3K to US$15K Recorded date: Working calculation, generated 2026-10-16. Methodology: This broad working insurance range was calculated for manual review based on the confirmed artwork context. The work is identified as a painting titled Belshazzar's Feast by Caracciolo, L, described as a copy after Jose Ribera. Attribution is qualified as a copy, not an original work by Ribera, which materially limits value. No date, dimensions, support, provenance, condition, or exhibition history are recorded in the supplied sources. The source excerpts confirm the object is held at Camp Chesterfield in Chesterfield, United States, and was contributed to Wikimedia Commons through a public-domain digitization project via the Digital Public Library of America and Indiana Memory. Absent documented sale records, comparable auction results, or a formal appraisal, the estimate is derived conservatively by treating the painting as a modestly valued old-master-style copy of unknown date and scale. The range is intentionally broad to account for the high uncertainty in attribution, condition, size, and market. It is not based on private insurance records or verified comparable sales. Qualification: This is a model-generated working insurance range for manual review only. It is not an official insurance value, appraisal, auction result, or sale price. It does not constitute a certified valuation and should not be relied upon for binding insurance, tax, estate, or financial purposes. Attribution is qualified as a copy after Jose Ribera, and key object details such as date, dimensions, medium support, and condition are not recorded in the supplied sources. Independent professional appraisal is recommended before any coverage decision.(Wikimedia Commons: The Feast of Belshazzar, 2022)