Giovanni Battista Gaulli, il Baciccio (Genoa 1639-1709 Rome)

This work constitutes a rare surviving bozzetto for Baciccio’s Vision of Heaven, painted to decorate the cupola of the church of the Gesù, Rome. Executed between 1672 and 1675, this was part of the artist’s most celebrated commission which resulted in his completing a further eight frescoes for the church, including those for the pendentives, the nave vault, the vault above the high altar, the semidome of the apse, and the vault of the left transept. Not completed until 1685, this series of ceiling paintings established the artist’s reputation as ‘the most spectacular Roman decorator of the second half of the century’ (E. Waterhouse, Roman Baroque Painting, Oxford, 1976, p. 50).