V. Farina, 'Echi della Salomé di Caravaggio in Azzolino, Sellitto e Ribera', in 'Caravaggio a Napoli. Nuovi dati, nuove idee', a c. di M.C. Terzaghi, in "Speciali di Studi di Storia dell'Arte" (isbn 978-88-8531185-7), 2021, pp. 165-175 . (original) (raw)

2021, ''Caravaggio a Napoli. Nuovi dati, nuove idee', in "Speciali di Studi di Storia dell'Arte".

Reflections of Caravaggio’s Salomé on Azzolino, Sellitto and Ribera The exhibition Caravaggio Napoli provided a new comparison of the two Salome receiving the head of the Baptist, from the National Gallery of London and the Royal Palace in Madrid. Merisi's compositions met with almost immediate success in the Neapolitan art school, giving more than one local master the opportunity to create his own variations on the theme. Among these is a still unpublished canvas by Giovan Bernardino Azzolino (1572 a. - 1645), whose unique iconography allows it to be identified with one of the two works to which the poet Giambattista Basile dedicated a madrigal between 1608 and 1609. It must also be the same painting that was later part - before May 1620 - of the collection of the Genoese Marcantonio Doria, Azzolino's main patron. Other documentary sources suggest that the work originated in the small court of Don Luigi Carafa, Prince of Stigliano, who was not only the patron of Giambattista and his sister Adriana Basile, but also of Azzolino, as well as a documented debtor of Marcantonio Doria. The canvas, which has an early chronology, shows undisputed dependence on Caravaggio's Salome in London. A second painting with an analogous subject, fairly recently presented with an attribution to Jusepe de Ribera, can be shown to be based on both Caravaggio's biblical composition in Madrid and Azzolino's just discussed above. According to the style analysis, the hand of Azzolino, Ribera's father-in-law, can also be recognised in the work, at the time when they shared their home and workshop, in the late 1610s. There is also a third edition of the theme: an autograph work of Carlo Sellitto's mature years (1613), as confirmed by a new restoration. The painting is another important and early proof of the Neapolitan success of the London Salome, of which the canvas varies the scheme with considerable originality. This interpretation of Caravaggio's work, the second in chronological order of the three presented for the occasion, may prove to be known to both Azzolino and Ribera.