The Betrayal of Christ

religious

Giovan Pietro Bellori, in a marginal note to Giovanni Baglione, called this work Cavaliere d'Arpino's most beautiful painting. Like so many of his works from this period, it is carefully executed - as befits a relatively small work on copper - and subtle in colour. Most exceptional is the handling of the two light sources, the moon and the artificial light that illuminates the figures.

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About the Artist

Giuseppe Cesari

1568 – 1640

Italian Mannerist painter, also known as Cavaliere d'Arpino, active mainly in Rome. He had an enormous reputation in the first two decades of the 17th century, when he gained some of the most prestigious commissions of the day, most notably the designing of the mosaics for the dome of St Peter's (1603-12). Although some of his early work is vigorous and colourful, his output is generally repetious and vacuous, untouched by the innovations of Caravaggio (who was briefly his assistant) or the Carracci. He was primarily a fresco painter, but he also did numerous cabinet pictures of religious or mythological scenes in a finicky Flemish manner.

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