Signed and dated 1754 lower right.

A pupil of Lorenzo Pasinelli and Giovan Gioseffo Dal Sole, Giovanni Battista Grati began his activity mainly in the Bolognese area, dividing himself between private and ecclesiastical commissions, as in the case of the painting "S. Anna teaching to read to the Virgin Mary" in the church of San Giacomo Maggiore (1705). In 1718 he is attested in Tuscany and Florence, where he apparently refused the offer to enter the courtly environment of the Grand Duke Cosimo III de'Medici: his "Self-portrait" conserved in the Uffizi Gallery (inv. No. . 2026) is datable to this period. Returning to Bologna, he was elected Prince of the Clementine Academy in October 1719, a role he held for a year, continuing to work, from that moment on, for noble and ecclesial commissions in the city of Bologna and its territory. Given a rather sparse catalog and the consequent rarity of works certainly attributable to his hand, this painting presents itself as an important documentary addition to his small pictorial corpus, both for the unusual subject, a seascape dominated in the foreground by a figure of a merchant dressed in oriental style, on horseback, as well as for the presence of the artist's signature as "Johan. Grati".

Comparative literature: G. Zanotti, Storia dell'Accademia Clementina di Bologna, Bologna 1739, Vol. I, pp. 64, 67, 316; Vol. II, pp. 185-191;
R. Roli, "Pittura Bolognese 1650-1800. Dal Cignani ai Gandolfi", Bologna 1977.