Tommaso Salini Revisited: Two New Attributions

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Aaron James Thom

Abstract

Tommaso Salini (c.1575–1625) is a frequently forgotten Baroque artist that fell under Caravaggio’s spell, despite having a tempestuous relationship with the great painter. Salini, also known as Mao, was a friend of Giovanni Baglione, the Italian art biographer, who included Salini in his Le vite de’ pittori (1642). Salini is better remembered for his role in the Baglione libel trial of 1603 than he is for his oil paintings, which sit between Caravaggio’s innovative way of painting and Baglione’s mediocre Mannerism.

Art historians have often shied away from exploring Salini’s career because the canvases that have carried his name seem stylistically dissimilar. The recent tendency has been to attribute these works to the anonymous ‘Pseudo-Salini’ painters, but this should form the topic of a separate article. The twentieth century saw art historians generously attribute an excessive amount of work to Salini, and many of these pictures were probably done decades after his death. In order for Salini’s oeuvre to be presented with accuracy, connoisseurs have had to inspect the original works that Baglione mentions being by Salini’s hand, as well as the pictures that have been successfully attributed to him.

Bearing in mind what Baglione wrote, Salini can be revealed as an innovate artist and still life specialist. This article includes a newly attributed still life (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) as a forgotten Salini, as well as a refreshed attribution of the masterful Piping Shepherd Boy (Foundling Museum, London). These works add weight to Salini being a more famous and better-known painter in his own time than scholarship has shown.

 

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Author Biography

Aaron James Thom, University of Aberdeen

PhD Candidate and Tutor

Aaron Thom is a PhD candidate and tutor at the University of Aberdeen. His dissertation, titled ‘Case Studies in Caravaggism: Style, Attribution, Iconography and Patronage’, explores the legacy of Caravaggio and his lesser-known followers working in Italy. Chapters range from one painting to one artist, and the PhD includes unpublished paintings as well as new attributions. Aaron has already gained an MA (Hons) in the History of Art and an M.Litt in Art & Business from the University of Aberdeen.