Saint Sebastian Clubbed to Death

Andrea Camassei

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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)

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art