Thursday, June 1, 2017

Drawings by Caravaggio's Enemy

Ottavio Leoni
Portrait of Giovanni Baglione
1625
etching, engraving
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Nobody seems to like Giovanni Baglione (1566-1643) very much, but he will always come in for an heroic share of posterity's attention because of the company he kept. He made the drawing immediately below as preparation for a painting installed at the Church of the Gesù in Rome. It was unveiled in 1603 and quickly became the object of malicious verses circulated by the artist Caravaggio and certain friends. Baglione sued them in a Roman court for slander, but the picture was nevertheless removed from the church in 1622 and has since disappeared. In 1642, shortly before Baglionie's death, he published his Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects  an imitation and updating of Vasari's famous book issued 75 years earlier. It contained one of the first and fullest biographies of Caravaggio, but written in a vengeful tone of venom. A generation later, in 1672, Giovan Pietro Bellori published his own collection of artist biographies, covering much the same ground as Baglione, but correcting many of his biases and errors.

Giovanni Baglione
Resurrection of Christ
ca. 1601
drawing
British Museum

Giovanni Baglione
Group of nude male figures standing and kneeling in supplication
ca. 1598
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Giovanni Baglione
Two figures handling vessels on a tabletop
ca. 1600
drawing
British Museum

Giovanni Baglione
Woman reclining on a bed
1620s
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Giovanni Baglione
Nude model with large jar
ca. 1600
drawing
British Museum

Giovanni Baglione
Scene of martyrdom
ca. 1600
drawing
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Giovanni Baglione
Seated woman gazing upward
before 1644
drawing
Morgan Library, New York 

Giovanni Baglione
Emperor Leo killed in his mother's presence for persecuting image-worshipers
ca. 1610-12
drawing
British Museum

Giovanni Baglione
Return of the Holy Family from Egypt
1599-1600
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Giovanni Baglione
St James the Greater routing the Moors at the Battle of Clavijo
ca. 1622
drawing
British Museum

Giovanni Baglione
Design for figurative border-frame around The Lamentation by Palma il Giovane
before 1628
drawing
British Museum

Giovanni Baglione
Two groups of Saints on clouds, after Correggio
ca. 1600
drawing
British Museum

Giovanni Baglione
Studies for The Flagellation
before 1643
drawings (assembled by Pierre-Jean Mariette)
British Museum

Giovanni Baglione
Ceiling design - Assumption of the Virgin
before 1644
drawing (in Mariette mount)
Morgan Library, New York