Bartolomeo Cavarozzi

 

Madonna and Child, 1625

I recently discovered the work of Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, a 17th century Caravaggisti, a follower or imitator of Caravaggio's style.   He came from the city of Viterbo about 50 miles north of Rome.  He attached himself to a Roman noble family, the Crescenzi especially to Giovanni Battista Crescenzi who dabbled in painting.  While living in the Crescenzi family palace near the Pantheon, Cavarozzi studied at the Roman Academy of St. Luke nearby.  In 1617, Cavarozzi joined Giovanni Battista Crescenzi on a journey to Spain.  Cavarozzi worked for two years making paintings for the Escorial. It was while in Spain he created his own individual variation on Caravaggio's work.  Caravaggio's drama and violence did not interest Cavarozzi.  Instead, Cavarozzi's paintings use Caravaggio's theatrical lighting to spotlight scenes of great tenderness expressed with an emotional reserve.  The emotion is all the more gratifying for being so carefully doled out.

Cavarozzi's work in Spain may have influenced the early work of Jusepe de Ribera, though he would have seen Cavarozzi's work in Italy, probably in Rome.  I can see a little of Cavarozzi's influence in the earliest work of Diego Velazquez.

Cavarozzi's career was short.  He died at the age of 35.

The Holy Family

The Madonna and Child with Angels, c1620

The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine, c1618

Cavarozzi copied his own work frequently, not an unusual practice of the day.

The Sacrifice of Isaac c.1603

(This painting is sometimes attributed to Caravaggio, though I doubt it)

A painting based loosely on Caravaggio's of the same subject in the Uffizi.  Cavarozzi's version is a lot less violent.  It looks to me like the angel and Isaac in this picture are the same model.

The Supper at Emmaus, c1615-1625

Still Life with Grapes, Fruit, and Three Wagtails, c.1615

Cavarozzi like Caravaggio started as a still life painter.  He made some strikingly original still lives like the one above in the Metropolitan Museum that uses a kind of all-over composition unexpected for a painting of that time.

reproduction from here.

Some scholars believe that Bartolome Cavarozzi and the Master of the Acquavella Still Life are one and the same.  Above and below are two still lives attributed to that anonymous master.  The identification of the Acquavella Master with Cavarozzi remains controversial, but these sure look like the hand of Cavarozzi to me.