An angel in flight

This is a study for the angel in the Arpino’s large fresco of the Ascension of Christ in San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome (fig. 1). When Pope Clement VIII undertook important refurbishment projects in Rome in preparation of the anno santo (holy year) of 1600, the two most important Roman basilicas – Saint Peter’s in the Vatican and San Giovanni in Laterano – underwent significant renovations. The pope entrusted Arpino with the latter project (H. Röttgen, Il Cavalier Giuseppe Cesari d’Arpino. Un grande pittore nello splendore della fama e nell’inconsistenza della fortuna, Rome, 2002, no. 89, ill.). The artist was responsible for overseeing the whole decoration by managing a team of painters and artisans, and, at the same time, for executing part of the frescoes himself. Between 1599 and 1601 the renovated transept of the basilica was covered with frescoes painted in two orders like illusionistic tapestries. Several artists were involved, including Cesare Nebbia, Giovanni Baglione, and Cristofano Roncalli, and created what has been described as ‘the most beautiful religious decoration in late 16th Century Rome’ (ibid., p. 94). The artist executed the large scene with the Ascension of Christ over the altar of the Holy Sacrament. He was well remunerated for the prestigious commission and was also honored by the Pope with the title of ‘Cavalier di Cristo’. It was from then on that the artist become known as the Cavalier d’Arpino. In the fresco, the flying angel on this sheet appears to the right of Christ. Similar figures of flying angels feature in earlier drawings by the artist – one is on a sheet of Three flying angels in Berlin, executed in preparation for a figure in the Cappella Olgiati in Santa Prassede in Rome (inv. KdZ. 24647; see Bolzoni, op. cit., no. 76, ill.). The present sheet is particularly impressive for its beautifully execution and for its large size, which foreshadows the gigantic format (10 by 14 meters) of the final fresco.

Arpino’s drawing was first reproduced in 1671 by the Dutch artist Jan de Bisschop (1628-1671) in his Paradigmata graphices variorum artificum (fig. 2). Intended as a selection of the most beautiful examples of drawings by different painters to be used as models by professional artists and connoisseurs, the publication was to include four volumes with about one hundred plates in total, but De Bisschop died in 1671 and only one volume, illustrated with twenty-five etchings showing examples of figure studies, appeared during his lifetime. The drawings included in the publication were mainly, but not exclusively, by Italian artists of the 16th and 17th Centuries (M. Plomp, ‘Remarks on Jan De Bisschop, Icones and Paradigmata’, in À l’origine du livre d’art. Les recueils d’estampes comme entreprise éditoriale en Europe (XVIe – XVIIIe siècles), Milan, 2010, pp. 42-43). It is possible, but not certain, that some of the original drawings reproduced by De Bisschop were owned by the the prominent magistrate and collector Jan Six, to whom the volume is dedicated (Van Gelder and Jost, op. cit., p. 19). The 1702 catalogue of the sale of Six’s collection lists various albums of Italian drawings, among them one containing works by ‘Cavalier Josepino’ (see Provenance). There is the possibility, therefore, that this drawing was in the Six collection, before being documented in that of the Dutch linguist Lambert ten Kate.

Fig. 1. Giuseppe Cesari, called Il Cavaliere d’Arpino, Ascension of Christ. San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome.

Fig. 2. Jan de Bisschop, after Giuseppe Cesari, called Il Cavaliere d’Arpino, Flying Angel, etching, from Paradigmata graphices variorum artificum, The Hague,1671, plate 9.The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.