Military Hero Honoring Personification of Rome

Style of Giuseppe Passeri · 17th century

Medium

Brush and brown ink, with pen and black ink, over black chalk, heightened with white gouache, on ivory laid paper

Original size

7.4 × 25.8 cm (2 15/16 × 10 3/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Mannerism

This commanding Baroque drawing captures a triumphant military figure paying homage to a personification of Rome, rendered with the dramatic gravity that defined Roman classicism at its height. Attributed to the style of Giuseppe Passeri, a Roman painter and draughtsman who trained under the influential Carlo Maratta, the work reflects the refined academic tradition that dominated seventeenth-century Roman circles. Passeri was celebrated for his ability to marry painterly warmth with classical discipline, and this sheet demonstrates that sensibility clearly — the layering of black chalk, brown ink washes, and crisp pen work builds form and shadow with careful deliberateness. The white gouache highlights lift the figures from the ivory paper, lending them a sculptural presence that feels almost architectural in its ambition. Passeri was a close associate of Maratta's workshop and contributed substantially to the theoretical and practical culture of drawing in late Baroque Rome, a tradition this work sits squarely within. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates the tonal richness and compositional authority of the original into a lasting painted surface — preserving the interplay of light and shadow that gives this allegory its quiet sense of ceremony, without losing the intimacy of the draughtsman's hand.