Saint Sebastian Clubbed to Death

Pierre-Jean Mariette, one of its early owners, attributed this drawing to Aniello Falcone, perhaps influenced by the Neapolitan biographer De Dominici, who commented that Falcone's drawing style was sometimes mistaken for that of Andrea Sacchi. Sacchi's classicizing influence is indeed evident in this drawing, which, as Ann Sutherland Harris has pointed out, is Andrea Camassei's study for an altarpiece in the church of San Sebastiano alla Polveriera, Rome, for which the artist was paid in 1633. In the painting the nude body of Sebastian bears the arrows of the first phase of his martyrdom. Here, the angels on clouds carry the arrows, at upper left. In both the painting and the drawing the Colosseum appears in the right background approximately where it actually stands in relation to the church, which is on the Palatine.

(Carmen C. Bambach, 2014)

Credit: Rogers Fund, 1965