From the darkness, illuminated by the light, the face of Moses emerges, he is portrayed half-length, holding the tablets of the law dictated by God, depicted at the moment when, after descending from Sinai, he turns his disapproving gaze toward his people busy worshipping ephemeral idols.

This is an early painting, signed and dated to 1653 by the Roman painter Ciro Ferri, educated in his city by Pietro da Cortona and his collaborator in a long series of fresco cycles, beginning in 1656 with the pictorial decoration of the Palazzo del Quirinale in Rome, continuing again together in 1659 in Florence for the decoration of Palazzo Pitti, and independently completing the Sala di Apollo by February 1661. The success of these rooms led to a very close relationship between Ciro Ferri and the Medici court, that later decided to commission to him many other works.

In Berrettini’s workshop Ferri took on a central role, particularly in the last years of the master’s life when, restricting his own work to the design phase, he left the completion of commissioned works to Ciro Ferri. This information is supported by the sources and the inventory drawn up upon Berrettini’s death in 1669, where a list of unfinished works to be completed by Ferri, is mentioned.

Information and provenance of the Certaldo painting are unknown, but the theme and the composition suggest that it was painted for a private chapel, perhaps the one of Palazzo Mancini in Cortona.