Guido Reni (1575-1642)

• Was an Italian painter.
• Born in Bologna into a family of musicians.
• He painted primarily religious works, but also mythological and allegorical subjects.
• Reni followed Annibale Carracci, to Rome.
• Reni completed commissions for his first altarpieces while in the Carracci academy.
• He left the academy by 1598, after an argument with Ludovico Carracci over unpaid work.
• In 1630 the Barberini family of Pope Urban VIII commissioned from Reni a painting of the Archangel Michael for the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini.
• Reni also frescoed the Paoline Chapel of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome as well as the Aldobrandini wings of the Vatican.
• He felt underpaid by the papal ministers, the artist left Rome once again for Bologna, leaving the role of the pre-eminent artist in Rome to Domenichino.
• The displayed painting is a crop from: Guido Reni, Cleopatra, ca. 1625.
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