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CAMASSEI, Andrea - b. 1602 Bevagna, d. 1649 Roma - WGA

CAMASSEI, Andrea

(b. 1602 Bevagna, d. 1649 Roma)

Italian painter and printmaker. He was first recorded in Rome in 1626 and was apparently trained there by Domenichino. His earliest surviving commission is the decoration of the chapel of St Philip Neri in Santa Margarita, Bevagna, with canvases showing scenes from the life of the saint (1627; in situ). In 1628 he worked with Andrea Sacchi, under Pietro da Cortona, on the decoration of the Villa Sacchetti at Castelfusano.

He received his first commission from the Barberini family, for chiaroscuro room decorations in the Palazzo Barberini, in 1631, by which time he had already been commissioned to paint a large overdoor fresco in St Peter’s; the composition of the lost Baptism of SS Processus and Martinianus (1630-35; destroyed before 1700) is recorded in a modello (private collection). After completing two frescoed ceilings in the Palazzo Barberini - Apollo and the Muses on Mt Parnassus (1631; destroyed) and God the Father Dividing the Angel Hierarchies (1632) - Camassei seemed on the verge of a major career when he was commissioned to paint the ceiling of the Gran Salone. However, Camassei declined the commission because he realized that it was beyond his talents. Instead it was awarded to Pietro da Cortona. A drawing at Chatsworth shows Camassei’s preliminary scheme for part of the ceiling.

The Hunt of Diana
The Hunt of Diana by

The Hunt of Diana

Painted at the commission of Urban VIII’s nephew Taddeo Barberini, the two large canvases, The Massacre of the Niobids and The Hunt of Diana were recorded in 1648-49 as hanging in his residence in the Via dei Giubbonari. Later, between the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, they were transferred to the Palazzo Barberini alle Quattro Fontane, where they were definitively recorded in 1817.

On the basis of payments to Camassei recorded in the Barberini account books for the Hunt of Diana, the paintings can be dated to 1638-39. It was Cardinal Bentivoglio who originally introduced the artist to Prince Taddeo, who became the artist’s patron and protector.

Many of the details of Camassei’s treatment of this rare subject derive from a famous precedent, the Hunt of Diana that Domenichino executed in 1617 for Scipione Borghese. Nevertheless on a stylistic level Camassei detaches himself from his model, working in a manner that clearly shows the influence of the Roman neo-Venetian trend of the 1630’s.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 9 minutes):

Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in B flat major RV 362 op. 8 No. 10 (Hunt)

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The Massacre of the Niobids
The Massacre of the Niobids by

The Massacre of the Niobids

Painted at the commission of Urban VIII’s nephew Taddeo Barberini, the two large canvases, The Massacre of the Niobids and The Hunt of Diana were recorded in 1648-49 as hanging in his residence in the Via dei Giubbonari. Later, between the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, they were transferred to the Palazzo Barberini alle Quattro Fontane, where they were definitively recorded in 1817.

On the basis of payments to Camassei recorded in the Barberini account books for the Hunt of Diana, the paintings can be dated to 1638-39. It was Cardinal Bentivoglio who originally introduced the artist to Prince Taddeo, who became the artist’s patron and protector.

Many of the details of Camassei’s treatment of this rare subject derive from a famous precedent, the Hunt of Diana that Domenichino executed in 1617 for Scipione Borghese. Nevertheless on a stylistic level Camassei detaches himself from his model, working in a manner that clearly shows the influence of the Roman neo-Venetian trend of the 1630’s. Poussin was the most authoritative representative of this movement, and indeed the figure reclining at the left of Camassei’s Massacre of the Niobids seems to derive directly from a counterpart in Poussin’s Death of Adonis. The figures in Camassei’s painting, with their sculptural quality, have also been connected to a relief by Perrier at the Villa Medici.

The dramatic narrative of the Niobids, in which the mortal Niobe is punished for insulting the goddess Latona, comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. When Niobe boastingly compared her seven offspring to Latona’s mere two, the angry goddess retaliated by sending her children Apollo and Diana to slaughter Niobe’s brood. With his compositional and formal choices, Camassei treats the scene almost like a genre picture, depriving it of some of its inherent high drama.

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