Material Oil on canvas,
Dimensions 51⅛ x 40⅛ in (130 x 102 cm)
Status Vetted

About the Work

The painted narrative before us illustrates a rarely-depicted episode of the sacred narrative, the preparatory moments of the torture of Saint Sebastian, who has been condemned by the the Roman Emperor Diocletian to be tied to a post in the middle of Rome’s Campo Marzio and serve as a living target for his executioners (although the archers’ arrows do not kill him outright). The combined iconography of Christ at the Column and the Pagan image of Apollo resulted in a representation of Saint Sebastian as a naked ephebe, whereas he was the centurion of the first cohort of guards, and we thus see him devoid of his armour. The fact that he has one arm raised and the other bent behind his back gives the figure a contrapposto (swaying) movement that seems natural. The tree and especially the sky makes the faces stand out, starting with the executioner in lost profile, as well as the two background figures, one with a very decorated helmet, and the other wearing a turban, set against the light, who speaks to him as he points to the saint. The tight composition thrusts the martyr’s youthful torso into the extreme foreground, where the light is concentrated and echoed by the white loincloth.

The chiaroscuro effects remind us that the influence of Caravaggio (1571-1610) was decisive for Vaccaro’s development, although even greater inspiration came from its adoption by Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652), the Spaniard present in Naples from 1616 onwards – two artists who left their mark on our painter’s earliest period. His artistic curiosity then shifted towards Guido Reni (1575-1642), Massimo Stanzione (c. 1585 – c. 1658) and the young Bernardino Cavallino (1616 – c. 1656). Our Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian lies at the meeting-point of these two distinct pictorial movements: while the protagonist’s suspension of time seems inspired by Guido Reni (in the treatment of this subject in Genoa, Musei di Strada Nuova – Palazzo Rosso), who was also present in Naples in 1620-1621, and Ribera (in the canvas of 1636 in the Prado, Madrid), Vaccaro transforms the narrative, with pathos eliminated in favour of a form of tension suggested by the upturned eyes, as the saint seemingly seeks help as he serenely accepts his fate. As his biographer De Dominici noted, Vaccaro’s imitation of Guido Reni through his “belle arie delle teste, e nel divin girar degl’occhi al cielo” thus provided him with a means of evolving his style1. While subtle chiaroscuro passages model the upper part of Saint Sebastian’s body, the blue of the sky adds an airy note to the scene, revealing his adoption of light-filled painting and the Neapolitan interest in neo-Venetian colour between 1630 and the 1640s. During its exhibition in Naples in 1984-1985, our painting was very convincingly dated to the years around 1640 by Vincenzo Pacelli. The combined naturalism and Classicism of this beautifully-designed composition lends it both potency and sensuality.

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Provenance

Lugano, collection of Piero Pagano (1929-2007); 2009, Gstaad (Switzerland), private
collection.

Literature

-Vincenzo Pacelli, in Civiltà del Seicento a Napoli, exh. cat. (Naples, Museo di Capodimonte, 24 October 1984 – 14 April 1985), 2 vols., vol. 1, pp. 491-492, no. 2.268;
-Wolfgang Prohaska, in Guido Reni e l’Europa. Fama e Fortuna, exh. cat. (Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle, 1 December 1988 – 26 February 1989), ed. by Sybille Ebert-Schifferer, Andrea Emiliani and Erich Schleier, pp. 676-677, no. D53;
-Riccardo Lattuada, “I percorsi di Andrea Vaccaro (1604-1670)”, in Mariaclaudia Izzo, Nicola Vaccaro (1640-1709). Un artista a Napoli tra Barocco e Arcadia, Todi, 2009, pp. 58-59, fig. 38;
-Nicola Spinosa, Pittura del Seicento a Napoli da Caravaggio a Massimo Stanzione, Naples, 2010, p. 423, no. 459;
-Michel Hilaire, L’âge d’or de la peinture à Naples de Ribera à Giordano, exh. cat. (Montpellier, Musée Fabre, 20 June – 11 October 2015), ed. by Michel Hilaire and Nicola Spinosa, pp. 162-163, no. 36.

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