Saint Cecilia at the Organ
Artist
Michele Rocca
(Italian, 1670-1751)
Dateca. 1727
CultureItalian
MediumOil on canvas
ClassificationPaintings
Credit LineBequest of John Ringling, 1936
Object numberSN167
This image of Saint Cecilia, patron saint of music and the blind, with its luminous pigmentation and decorative sensibility, demonstrates the elegant style that defined Rocca's oeuvre. The richly-colored painting is in some ways more closely aligned with the emerging style of French Rococo than with the Roman neo-Baroque. Rocca's small-scale cabinet pictures of mythological and hagiographical subjects earned him the reputation of petit maître in early 18th-century Rome. Saint Cecilia was a 3rd-century Roman noblewoman who, along with her husband, suffered martyrdom under Emperor Alexander Severus.
On View
Not on view
18th century
ca. 1600s
