King David with Angels

The monumental seated figure of David who points downward as he receives inspiration from an angel at upper left dominates this scene; in the right background the youthful figure of an angel can be discerned playing the harp. This relatively finished, squared demonstration drawing (‘modello’) was preparatory for a fresco on one of the spandrels supporting the dome of Piacenza Cathedral, painted by Morazzone in 1625-26, shortly before his death. The frescoes were left unfinished by Morazzone and the remaining compartments were finished by Guercino. Among the only differences between study and finished work, the drawing omits the monumental flying figure of the angel bearing a scroll who is seen immediately below the seated David in the fresco. Probably secured through the intervention of Bishop Giovanni Linati, the frescoes by Morazzone are mentioned by a number of seventeenth-century authors, which attests to the prestige and importance of the commission (Giovanni Baglione in 1642, p. 186; Scaramuccia in 1674, p. 164; Carlo Malvasia in 1678, II, p. 367; and Filippo Baldinucci in 1681-1728, IV, ed. 1846, p. 653).

Born in the small Piedmontese town that gave him his nickname, Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli "Morazzone" was trained in Rome by the Sienese artist Ventura Salimbeni in the grand historical manner of painting, but was equally influenced by the Lombard tradition that also shaped Caravaggio. Morazzone's drawings and paintings are primarily about a naturalistic figural vocabulary and a pictorial, quite magical exploration of light. He was among the most significant North-Italian rivals of Caravaggio.

(Carmen C. Bambach, 2009)