Carlo Saraceni Mars and Venus ca. 1605-1610 oil on copper Museu de Arte de São Paulo |
Carlo Saraceni Mars and Venus ca. 1600 oil on copper Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
Carlo Saraceni St Cecilia with an Angel ca. 1610 oil on canvas Palazzo Barberini, Rome |
Carlo Saraceni Martyrdom of St Cecilia ca. 1610 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
"Born in Venice in the early 1580s, Saraceni moved to Rome at a young age, where, after a short apprenticeship with Camillo Mariani, a painter and sculptor of minor importance, he entered Caravaggio's circle. He gained his initial reputation through a few small paintings executed for private patrons, and later obtained commissions for larger works, chiefly altarpieces, in which the influence of Caravaggio is very evident. . . . Saraceni was closely associated with the northern painters of the Caravaggesque school, especially with Adam Elsheimer, to whom, in works of small scale, his manner reveals obvious affinities. . . . Although Saraceni received his formal training in Rome, his art betrays a certain antipathy against strict and controlled draftsmanship which, characterized by Baglione as a maniera debole, is probably to be regarded as an aspect of his Venetian heritage. . . . He was never quite at home in Rome. The quality of emotionally vacuous objectivity in his art, his disregard for proper disegno, and his preference for color and chiaroscuro as his primary media, seem to have engendered little appreciation among the Romans. . . . Saraceni remained active in Rome until about 1615. He spent the rest of his life in Venice, where he died in 1620 without exerting any meaningful influence, either through his own works or through his students."
– Hermann Voss, from Baroque Painting in Rome (1925), revised and translated by Thomas Pelzel (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy, 1997)
Carlo Saraceni Angel appearing to the Wife of Manoah ca. 1610 oil on copper Kunstmuseum, Basel |
Carlo Saraceni Virgin and Child with St Anne 1610 oil on canvas Palazzo Barberini, Rome |
Carlo Saraceni Virgin and Child with St Anne and an Angel before 1620 oil on copper private collection |
Carlo Saraceni Moses defending the Daughters of Jethro ca. 1609-1610 oil on copper National Gallery, London |
Carlo Saraceni Judith with the Head of Holofernes ca. 1610-15 oil on canvas Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
Carlo Saraceni St Gregory the Great ca. 1610 oil on canvas Palazzo Barberini, Rome |
attributed to Carlo Saraceni Four Assassins murdering a Bishop before 1620 drawing British Museum |
Carlo Saraceni The Deposition before 1620 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
Carlo Saraceni Beheading of St John the Baptist before 1620 etching Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Carlo Saraceni Paradise ca. 1598 oil on copper Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |