Gaspare Celio

(Roma, 1571 - Roma, 1640)

The Battle of Hercules and Theseus against the Amazons by Gaspare Celio (datable to 1610) is configured as a very rare example of Roman painting from the first decade of the seventeenth century, in which the artist - as pointed out by Federico Zeri - experiments a pioneering approach to painting by Battaglia, thus opening the way to the flourishing of a genre that will have its full success in the course of the 17th century (Zeri 1986).

In addition to the Battle of Hercules and Theseus against the Amazons, the production of easel works by Cavalier Celio is documented exclusively by three works: a Battle in the Borghese collection (Rome, Galleria Borghese), a second from Matteoi (Rome, National Gallery of Palazzo Barberini) and a third - untraceable - reported by Federico Zeri in Parma (Zeri 1986, Caravaggio and the Mattei collection, p. 144). Also worthy of mention are the numerous drawings with Battles of Celio preserved in the Cabinet of Drawings of the Uffizi (Stemerding 2016).

The nodal importance of the work lies - as well as its undoubtedness - in its role as a link between the great cycles as a historical subject (such as the Battle of Tullio Ostilio by Cavalier d'Arpino on the Capitoline Hill) and the genre production of the painters battalists, among the undisputed protagonists of the art market of the full seventeenth century. The role played by Gaspare Celio was precisely that of ferryman of the Battle from a simple representation of an event to the representation of a fact of arms sic et simpliciter (Zeri 1986).