Apollon

Giovanni Baglione was a Roman painter best known today for his bitter rivalry with Caravaggio, who famously mocked him in verse. His c.1620 depiction of Apollo places him in the tradition of mythological painting that flourished in early Baroque Rome among painters competing for papal and aristocratic patronage. Baglione had absorbed Caravaggesque influence despite his animosity toward Caravaggio personally, and his mythological works show the tension between his conservative instincts and the unavoidable pull of the new naturalism. An Apollo would have been a standard commission for a palazzo or garden decoration.

Apollo is likely depicted with his defining attributes — the lyre or bow, the laurel, the radiant sunlight around his head — in a pose drawing on antique sculpture that Baglione would have studied in Roman collections. His handling combines naturalistic modelling of the figure with a more decorative treatment of drapery and accessories.