Detail of the vault of the Chapel of St Sebastian in St Peter’s, Rome,cartoon

Detail of the vault of the Chapel of St. Sebastian in St. Peter's Rome from around 1633 is a cartoon by Pietro da Cortona for one of the most prestigious decorative commissions in Roman Baroque art. Working in St. Peter's placed Cortona at the pinnacle of papal patronage. Cortona was the supreme master of Roman High Baroque decoration, whose ceiling fresco for the Gran Salone of the Barberini Palace (1633–39) defined the illusionistic ceiling painting that dominated European decorative art fo...

The cartoon demonstrates Cortona's monumental figure style and dynamic compositional approach that would define Roman Baroque ceiling painting.