Giuseppe Cesari

Giuseppe Cesari, known as the Cavaliere d’Arpino, was the most successful painter in Rome around 1600. His pictures are graceful and bright, with elegant figures, clear colour and a polished finish that sits between late Mannerism and the early Baroque.

He was born in Rome in 1568 and started in the Vatican as a colour mixer before training under Niccolò Pomarancio. He worked in Naples at the Certosa di San Martino and then back in Rome on major fresco cycles, including the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitol. Caravaggio worked in his studio soon after arriving in Rome, and Cesari owned two early Caravaggios, now in the Galleria Borghese. His Diana and Actaeon is in the Louvre and his Perseus Rescuing Andromeda is in the Saint Louis Art Museum. He died in Rome in 1640.

In Diana and Actaeon, notice the elegant, stretched figures and the fresh, clear colour.