Bartolomeo Cavarozzi

The Supper at Emmaus (c. 1615–25) oil on canvas (55 x 76.73 inches) Getty Center, Los Angeles

Bartolomeo Cavarozzi (1587–1625), occasionally referred to as Bartolomeo Crescenzi, was an Italian caravaggisti painter of the Baroque period. Cavarozzi's work began receiving increased admiration and appreciation from art historians in the last few decades of the 20th century, emerging as one of the more distinct and original followers of Caravaggio. He received training from Giovanni Battista Crescenzi in Rome and later traveled to Spain alongside his master for a few years where he achieved some renown and was significant in spreading "Caravaggism" to Spain before returning to Italy. His surviving works are predominantly Biblical subjects and still-life paintings, although older references note he "was esteemed a good painter especially of portraits".

Biography Bartolomeo Cavarozzi was born 15 February 1587 The earliest of his known works, Santa Ursula and his companions with Pope Ciríaco and Santa Catalina de Alejandría (1608) was painted for the church of the Confraternity of Sante Orsola e Caterina (now in Basilica of St. Mark the Evangelist, Rome) and shows the influence of Cristofano Roncalli (one of three painters sometimes referred to as Il Pomarancio).

Saint Jerome with Two Angels (1617) oil on canvas (116 x 173 cm) Palatine Gallery. Palazzo Pitti, Florence At some point before 1617, Bartolomeo Cavarozzi was taken in and living in the palace of a Roman nobleman Giovanni Battista Crescenzi. Crescenzi was a painter and architect who had established an academy in Rome for young painters in the vicinity of the Pantheon, where he taught drawing and art. Much of the training there was focused on drawing directly from life curious and beautiful objects provided by Crescenzi such as fruits, vegetables, animals, and such found around Rome. An example of Cavarozzi's still-life painting is Grape Vines and Fruit, with Three Wagtailsca (ca. 1615–18) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. His still-life paintings have been said to be "important for the history of still-life painting in both Italy and Spain". Among Cavarozzi's finest work is a painting of Saint Jerome with Two Angels, which was purchased in 1617 by the Medici in Florence. The training Cavarozzi received at Crescenzi's academy can be seen in the still life with skull, rosary, books, and crucifix on the worm-eaten table. Also evident is Caravaggio's style in the remarkable handling of light in the Saint Jerome painting.

The Holy Family with Saint Catherine of Alexandria (1618) oil on canvas (256 x 170 cm) Prado Museum, Madrid. In 1617 Giovanni Battista Crescenzi traveled to Spain to work in the Pantheon of the Escorial and in this period he was significant in defining artistic taste in the Madrid court.

Cavarozzi returned to Rome in 1619. He was active in Rome and in his home town of Viterbo where he produced a painting of Saint Isidore for the Chiesa Collegiata di Sant'Angelo in Spata, and in 1622 his painting of the Visitation was installed in Viterbo which now hangs in the Town Hall chapel. He is known to have coped his own work, and in the case of one painting of the Holy Family "almost ad nauseam". He died in Rome on 21 September 1625 at the relatively young age of thirty-eight.

Other works include a San Silvestro for the Church of the Confraternity of Jesus; a St Phillip Apostle for the Church of San Pietro del Castagno; a St Benedict for the lateral door of the Church of Monasterio della Duchessa; a Presentation at the Temple for the Church of the College of Doctors, and also painted a canvas for the Chapel of the Calabresi family in the church of Sant'Ignazio. A contemporary from Viterbo, Filippo Caparozzi, was a disciple of Giuseppe d'Arpino.

Gallery

Works St Ursula and Her Companions with Pope Ciriacus and St Catherine of Alexandria (1608, San Marco, Rome), size: 256 x 17 cm. Guardian Angel (Ángel guardián) (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires) Aminta's Lament (1614–15, private collection) Saint Jerome and the Angels (1617, Palatine Gallery inside Palazzo Pitti, Florence), size: 116 x 173 cm. Holy Family (Accademia Albertina, Turin) Virgin and Child (Museum of the Duomo di Viterbo) Holy Family with Saint Catherine (c. 1618, Museo del Prado, Madrid), size: 256 x 170 cm. Virgin and Child with Angels (ca. 1620), oil on canvas ( 61 × 49 in), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Virgen con el niño (c. 1618, Colegio de Doncellas Nobles, Toledo) The Supper at Emmaus (c. 1615–25), attributed Young Violinist (Louvre, Paris) Young Violinist (Parelari Collection, Bergamo) Visitation (1622, Palazzo Comunale, Viterbo) Saint Cecilia Saint Jerome (Palazzo Margherita, Rome), attributed