Alexander in the Studio of Apelles

Salvator Rosa was a painter, poet, and one of the most important Italian printmakers of the seventeenth century. His career flourished mostly in Rome except for a brief time in Florence, where he worked for the wealthy Medici family. Rosa produced more than one hundred prints, often for a highly educated audience. Here, he shows the celebrated painter Apelles with the emperor Alexander the Great. The historian Pliny wrote that Apelles mocked Alexander for his lack of knowledge about art. For Rosa, this subject allowed him to express that he was independent and more knowledgeable than his patron.