PITTORE CARAVAGGESCO DEL XVII SECOLO Lot n° 158 bis

Death of Meleager Oil on canvas, 216X245 cm The painting depicts the Death of Meleager narrated in the 8th book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. The depiction adheres to the text in which the mourning is described in which the young hero's family and the Caledonian people participate (VIII, 526-530). The design layout is typical of Caravaggesque works, with a light source falling from above to the left illuminating the young man's body and the female figures emerging from the shadows. A direction of lume that highlights forms and gestures, according to a formula that evokes the compositions of Giusto Fiammingo and his Death of Socrates formerly in the Giustiniani collection, but here developed according to a noticeably Baroque narrative and in which a peculiar attention to the classical tradition is felt. Indeed, one cannot miss the detail of the sagging arm, which, from the bas-relief preserved in the Capitoline Museums, can be found in the famous Depositions of Christ painted by Raphael and Caravaggio up to David's Death of Marat.