Death of Adonis (La Spezia)

This 1505 Death of Adonis from La Spezia dates from Sebastiano's early Venetian period, when he was working under the influence of Giorgione and Giovanni Bellini. The mythological subject allowed the young painter to demonstrate his mastery of the nude figure and poetic landscape. His figures carry Venetian sensuous richness combined with the overwhelming physical presence that Michelangelo's influence brought to his Roman works. Sebastiano del Piombo, born Sebastiano Luciani in Venice around 1485 and active in Rome from 1511 until his death in 1547, occupied one of the most interesting positions in sixteenth-century Italian painting: trained in the Venetian tradition under Giorgione and influenced by the young Titian, he subsequently became the closest collaborator of Michelangelo in Rome, receiving figure compositions from the great Florentine that he executed with his Venetian command of color and atmosphere. The resulting fusion — Venetian surface and Roman form — was his most distinctive contribution to the tradition. His appointment as keeper of the Papal Seal (Piombo) in 1531 brought him financial security but somewhat reduced his artistic output in the final decades of his career.

The early work displays the atmospheric landscape and sensuous color characteristic of the Venetian school, before Sebastiano's later exposure to Michelangelo's sculptural approach transformed his style.