BACICCIO
(b. 1639, Genova, d. 1709, Roma)

The Three Maries at the Empty Sepulchre

1684-85
Oil on canvas, 87 x 113 cm
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

ALongside Carlo Maratti, Baciccio was considered one of the leading figures of the Roman Late Baroque. Excelling as portraitist and fresco painter, he also painted majestic altarpieces and refined canvases for private galleries.

The present painting emblematically expresses the main stylistic elements of the artist in the 1680s who was at the height of his success following his magnificent work at the church of the Gesù. We find the painter's full embracement of Bernini's language, not only in the focus on "sculptured painting", typical of the Roman Baroque, but also his adoption of the figurative types of this milieu. The luminous, shimmering palette reflects Baciccio's late evolution towards eighteenth-century painting, of which he was one of the prime forerunners.