Lamentation

Private collection

religious

Cavaliere d'Arpino (Giuseppe Cesari) was an artist specializing in decorative cycles (especially fresco painting) for high-ranking ecclesiastics and Roman princes. He was a favourite of Pope Clement VIII. In Rome his commissions include decoration for the Loggia Orsini, the vault of the Contarelli chapel (San Luigi de'Francesi), the Cappella Olgiati (Santa Prassede), and the Palazzo dei Conservatori.

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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