Cavallucci - San Benedetto Giuseppe Labre

Antonio Cavallucci (21 August 1752 – 18 November 1795) was an eighteenth-century Italian painter of religious scenes and portraits.

Biography

Attributed to Antonio Cavallucci The Madonna Embracing the Christ Child

Cavallucci was born in

Sermoneta Sermoneta is a hill town and ''comune'' in the province of Latina (Lazio), central Italy. It is a walled hill town, with a 13th-century Romanesque cathedral called Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta and a massive castle, built by the Caetani f ...

in the

Lazio it, Laziale , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

. His artistic talents were recognized in an early stage by Francesco

Caetani The House of Caetani, or Gaetani, is the name of an Italian noble family, originally from the city of Gaeta, connected by some to the lineage of the lords of the Duchy of Gaeta, as well as to the patrician Gaetani of the Republic of Pisa. It play ...

, Duke of Sermoneta in 1738-1810. In 1765, he brought the 13-year-old Cavallucci to Rome, where he became a pupil of Stefano Pozzi and three years later of

Gaetano Lapis Gaetano Lapis (1704 – 1 April 1776) was an Italian painter of the late- Baroque period. Biography He was born in Cagli and trained under Sebastiano Conca. He painted a ''Birth of Venus'' for the ceiling of the Palazzo Borghese Palazzo B ...

.Vita di Antonio Cavallucci da Sermoneta pittore
by Giovanni Gherardo De Rossi; Venice 1796, page 13. He also studied drawing at the

Accademia di San Luca The Accademia di San Luca (the "Academy of Saint Luke") is an Italian academy of artists in Rome. The establishment of the Accademia de i Pittori e Scultori di Roma was approved by papal brief in 1577, and in 1593 Federico Zuccari became its fi ...

(c. 1769-1771). His earliest work dates from the mid-1760s. It is a

tempera Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

in the Casa Cavallucci in Sermoneta. His first portrait was of his benefactor Duke Francesco Caetani. This portrait is only preserved as an

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

in 1772 by Pietro Leone Bombelli (1737–1809). His first major commission was the decoration of five audience chambers in the Caetani Palace in Rome in 1776. He painted mythological scenes and

allegories As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...

appropriate for each room. In the early 1780s, he painted mostly portraits, such as those of ''Francesco Caetani'' and ''Teresa Corsini, Duchess of Sermoneta''. His painting, ''The'' ''Origin of Music'' (1786), was based on illustrations in the book ''Iconologia'' (1593) from

Cesare Ripa Cesare Ripa (c. 1555, Perugia – Rome) was an Italian iconographer who worked for Cardinal Anton Maria Salviati as a cook and butler. Life Little is known about his life. He was born of humble origin in Perugia about 1555. The exact date o ...

. Cavalluccialso received commissions from Cardinal Romualdo Braschi-Onesti (1753–1817), nephew of the pope

Pius VI Pope Pius VI ( it, Pio VI; born Count Giovanni Angelo Braschi, 25 December 171729 August 1799) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 15 February 1775 to his death in August 1799. Pius VI condemned the French Revoluti ...

. He painted the portraits of his new benefactor and of the pope in 1788. He was inducted into the

in 1786,

Academy of Arcadia The Accademia degli Arcadi or Accademia dell'Arcadia, "Academy of Arcadia" or "Academy of the Arcadians", was an Italian literary academy founded in Rome in 1690. The full Italian official name was Pontificia Accademia degli Arcadi. History F ...

in 1788, and the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon in 1788. Cavallucci is said to have painted St

Benedict Joseph Labre Benedict Joseph Labre (french: Benoît-Joseph Labre, 25 March 1748 – 16 April 1783) was a French mendicant, Franciscan tertiary, and Catholic saint. Labre was from a well to do family near Arras, France. After attempting a monastic lifestyle ...

while the saint was in ecstasy, or (as is perhaps more plausible), having seen the saint in ecstasy, to have brought him to his studio and painted his portrait there. In later years, he worked for Cardinal

Francesco Saverio Zelada Francesco Saverio eZelada (27 August 1717, in Rome – 19 December 1801, in Rome) was a cardinal (Catholicism), cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, born of a Spanish family, who served in the Papal Curia and in the diplomacy, diplomatic se ...

, decorating his titular church

San Martino ai Monti San Martino ai Monti, officially known as Santi Silvestro e Martino ai Monti ("Saints Sylvester & Martin in the Mountains"), is a minor basilica in Rome, Italy, in the Rione Monti neighbourhood. It is located near the edge of the Parco del Colle ...

in Rome. Cavallucci died in Rome in 1795. He was influenced by

Pompeo Batoni Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (25 January 1708 – 4 February 1787) was an Italian painter who displayed a solid technical knowledge in his portrait work and in his numerous allegorical and mythological pictures. The high number of foreign visitors tra ...

and

Anton Raphael Mengs Anton Raphael Mengs (22 March 1728 – 29 June 1779) was a German painter, active in Dresden, Rome, and Madrid, who while painting in the Rococo period of the mid-18th century became one of the precursors to Neoclassical painting, which replace ...

. There is in his art some of the northern European feeling that had made its way into Rome at the end of the eighteenth century. The Portuguese painter

Domingos Sequeira Domingos António de Sequeira (Lisbon; 10 March 1768Rome; 8 March 1837) was a famous Portuguese painter at the Royal Court of King John VI of Portugal. Biography He was born in Belém, Lisbon, into a modest family. He later changed his family nam ...

was one of his pupils. It is also known that in Rome he had two more pupils
Giovanni Micocca
and Tommaso Sciacca.

Selected works

* ''Abigail before David'' (1773) * ''Departure of Hector and Andromache'' (1773) * ''Crucifixion with Saints'' (1773) * ''Presentation of the Virgin'' (1786) in the

Cathedral of Spoleto Spoleto Cathedral ( it, Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta; ''Duomo di Spoleto'') is the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Spoleto-Norcia created in 1821, previously that of the diocese of Spoleto, and the principal church of the Umbrian city of Spol ...

* ''Thomas of Cori (levitation)'' (1786), Eucharistic museum of Hieron, Paray-le-Monial, France * ''Venus with Ascanius'', at the Palazzo Cesarini in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

* ''Investiture of St Bona'' (1791),

Cathedral of Pisa Pisa Cathedral ( it, Cattedrale Metropolitana Primaziale di Santa Maria Assunta; Duomo di Pisa) is a medieval Roman Catholic cathedral dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, in the Piazza dei Miracoli in Pisa, Italy, the oldest of the t ...

* ''Principe del Belvedere'' (1793), Gallerie di Capodimonte, Naples * ''St. Elias and the Purgatory'' (1793)

S. Martino ai Monti San Martino ai Monti, officially known as Santi Silvestro e Martino ai Monti ("Saints Sylvester & Martin in the Mountains"), is a minor basilica in Rome, Italy, in the Rione Monti neighbourhood. It is located near the edge of the Parco del Colle ...

* ''Altar piece'' in the Church of San Nicolò in Catania, Sicily * ''St Francis announces the Pardon to the people'' in the Chapel of St Diego d’Alcalà in the

Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli The Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels ( it, Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli) is a Papal minor basilica situated in the plain at the foot of the hill of Assisi, Italy, in the ''frazione'' of Santa Maria degli Angeli. The basilica was con ...

in Assisi.

References

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cavallucci, Antonio 1752 births 1795 deaths People from the Province of Latina 18th-century Italian painters Italian male painters Italian Baroque painters Italian neoclassical painters 18th-century Italian male artists