DIDIER AARON Paintings × Drawings × Sculpture

CAVALIERE D’ARPINO [] (Arpino, nr Sora 1568 - 1640 )

Study of a bearded man with a turban- hat

Black chalk 181 x 128 mm Lower right, a later inscription in pen and ink: Joseph d’Arpino and 64 (or B4) c.1612

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Herwarth Röttgen, Cavaliere Giuseppe Cesari d’Arpino, Die Zeichnungen, I Disgni, Vol. III, ‘Reife und Alter, Maturità e Anzianità, 1605-1640', Stuttgart, 2013, no. 445, ill.

In 1610 Arpino was in charge of the decoration of Paul V’s future funerary chapel, the Cappella Paolina, also known as the Borghese Chapel, in S Maria Maggiore, Rome (fig.1). Here he supervised important con-tributions from and Ludovico Cigoli and painted figures of Prophets in the pendentives and The Apparition of the and St John to St Gregory the Wonderworker in the lunette above the (fig.2). A beautiful drawing for the figure of St Gregory, c.1610-2 (Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany, inv. 14346), exemplifies d’Arpino’s artistic output in his maturity. According to Röttgen (2013, no. 455, ill.), Fig.1: Cappella Paolina in S Maria Maggiore, Rome. this drawing of a head, possibly of an Oriental, with its tendency to the ornamental and its confident handling of the chalk, is close to the preparatory work for the decoration of the Capella Paolina, particularly reminding of the heads of the heretics of Neocaesarea on the right of the lunette. St Gregory the Wonderworker (c.213-70) was known for his phenomenal miracles. He was introduced to Fig.2: The Apparition of the Virgin and St John to St Gregory the Christianity through Wonderworker above the altar in the Cappella Paolina. studies with the leading Christian intellectual of his time, , at Caesarea (nr. Modern Haifa, Israel) and when he returned to Neocaesarea, Gregory was made bishop. According to an Eastern tradition, his principal work Exposition of Faith, was given to him in a vision of St John the Evangelist with the intercession of the Virgin Mary, the subject of Arpino’s painting in the lunette (fig.2). Giuseppe Cesari, later known as Cavaliere d’Arpino, was the son and initially pupil of the impoverished painter Muzio Cesari. His , Bernardino (1571–1622), became his principal assistant. Giuseppe’s talent for drawing led his mother to take him to Rome in 1581–2 where he began working in the studio of Niccolò Circignani. By the end of the year Pope Gregory XIII granted Giuseppe a salary. In 1585 Giuseppe painted for the Pope decorative friezes (destr.) in the newly built Palazzo del Quirinale. He had become a member of the Accademia di S Luca, and in 1586 he was admitted to the , the Virtuosi al Pantheon. An important commission for frescoes in S Lorenzo in Damaso for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, Giuseppe’s most influential patron, followed which included two narrative scenes (untraced). After the death of Cardinal Farnese in 1589, he accepted an invitation to work in . It was probably on Giuseppe’s return to Rome, that became a member of his studio; he owned two of Caravaggio’s early works (Rome, Gal. Borghese). In 1592 Giuseppe became the principal painter of the newly elected pope Clement VIII. The frescoes in the Olgiati Chapel (Rome, S Prassede), among his most important works, were probably executed at this time. The work shows influences of Raphael, Titian, Correggio and and was a true forerunner of Annibale Carracci’s Galleria in the , Rome (begun 1597). In the mid- Giuseppe gained a commission from the Pope’s powerful nephew Cardinal to decorate the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the in Rome with Histories of Ancient Rome. In 1598 Giuseppe painted two canvases for the Baptistery of the Pope’s episcopal church, S Giovanni in Laterano: St John the Evangelist Led to his Tomb (Old Sacristy) and St John Drinking the Tyrant’s Poison (untraced) and a large of the Ascension (1599–1601; in situ) for which he was made Cavaliere di Cristo by Clement VIII and in 1599 he was elected president of the Accademia di S Luca. The high-point of Cavaliere d’Arpino’s papal patronage was his undertaking in 1603 to design the of the dome of St Peter’s, a vast project which occupied most of the following decade. In 1605 Clement VIII was succeeded by Paul V, whose nephew, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, had Arpino arrested in 1607, confiscating his collection of 105 pictures. However, his commissions soon picked up again, including the work at S Maria Maggiore, Rome (above) and, in 1613-4, the supervision of the decoration by Agostino Tassi and Orazio Gentileschi, among others, of the new casino of Cardinal Alessandro Peretti- Montalto’s villa at Bagnaia (now Villa Lante).

FURTHER LITERATURE: H. Röttgen (ed.), Il Cavalier d’Arpino, cat. for ex. at Pal. Venezia, Rome, 1973. T. M. Bayer, ‘The Artist as Patron: An Examination of the Supervisory and Patronal Activities of Giuseppe Cesari, the Cavaliere d’Arpino’, Athanor, 9 (1990), pp. 17– 23. M. Forcellino, Il Cavaliere d’Arpino: Napoli 1589–1597, Milan, 1991. Z. Wazbinski, ‘Il cavaliere d’Arpino ed il mito accademico: il problema dell’ autoidentificazione con l’ideale’ in M. Winner (ed.), Künstler über sich in seinem Werk. Internationales Symposium der Bibliotheca Hertziana: Rome, 1989, Weinheim, 1992, pp. 317–63. B. Gilone, Omnia vincit amor: la loggia del Cavalier D’Arpino nel “palazzetto di Sisto V” in Parione, Rome, 2000. L. Sickel, ‘Künstlerrivalität im Schatten der Peterskuppel: Giuseppe Cesari d’Arpino und das Attentat auf Cristoforo Roncalli’, Marburg. Jb. Kstwiss., no. 28, 2001, pp. 159– 89. H. Röttgen, ‘Le funzioni del disegno nell’opera e nella bottega di Giuseppe Cesari d’Arpino’, in M. G. Bernardini (ed.), Studi sul Barocco romano: scritti in onore di Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, Milan, 2004, pp. 19–24. L. Sickel, Il Cavalier Giuseppe Cesari d’Arpino: un grande pittore nella splendore della fama e nell’inconstanza della fortuna, Rome, 2002.

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