S. Sebastian

This 1637 Saint Sebastian, held at the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, is among the earliest precisely dated examples of Vaccaro's treatment of this favourite subject and offers a baseline against which his later versions — including the 1640 and 1650 canvases — can be compared. The Capodimonte Museum's collection, formed from the Farnese inheritance of the Bourbon kings of Naples, preserves the cream of Neapolitan Baroque painting, and Vaccaro's presence there confirms his standing among the city's most important artists. At 1637 Vaccaro was at an early stage of his mature career, and his handling of Sebastian shows the influence of Ribera — then at the absolute peak of his Neapolitan dominance — in the physicality of the figure and the uncompromising directness of the tenebrism.

The 1637 canvas shows Vaccaro at his most Riberesque — direct, physical, unsparing in the observation of a bound and pierced body. Oil paint is applied with confident density in the flesh passages, creating a sense of actual weight and muscular tension. The tenebrism is at its most extreme, with Sebastian's illuminated figure emerging from near-total darkness.