Attributed to Giulio Cesare Procaccini

(Bologna circa 1570-1625 Milan)

Salome with the head of Saint John the Baptist

Footnotes

Giulio Cesare Procaccini was the son of the painter, Ercole Procaccini the Elder, who was a student of Annibale Carracci. The family moved from Bologna to Milan around 1590, where Ercole founded the Academy of the Procaccini that trained his three sons among many other Milanese artists. Giulio Cesare began his career as a sculptor and worked in this medium until about 1600. He worked in Modena from 1613 to 1616 where he was inspired by Correggio's use of sfumato. While in Genoa in 1618, he was influenced by Peter Paul Rubens's work.

If for the official Milanese commissions Procaccini seems to adopt a highly polished style, for smaller works the painter appears to use a freer approach, certainly influenced by Rubens's examples, that the painter knew well from his Genoese sojourn: comparable works are the self portrait sold at Sotheby's, 12 December 1990, lot 55, as well as numerous head studies and works for private devotion.

Procaccini painted the subject of the Salome with the head of Saint John the Baptist several times, often using a close up point of view which results in a composition crowded in the foreground of the painting. The facial type of Salome relates to Procaccini's characteristic physiognomy, but more interesting is perhaps the comparison of the head of Saint John to other compositions of the same subject, as well as to the Christ and the Magdalen in the Collection of the Cassa di Risparmio di Genova ed Imperia (see: P. Pagano and M.C. Galassi, La pittura del '600 a Genova, Milan, 1988, ill. 488), which suggests the existence of a preparatory drawing.

Procaccini's style evolved throughout his career, employing elements derived from the Mannerists, epitomising the Counter-Reformation ideals of the Milanese Accademia Federiciana and inserting Baroque elements in a style which fused the Emilian, Milanese and Genoese artistic cultures.