The drawing, translating the biblical passage with philological clarity, restores the intense drama of the episode: the hair fatally entangled in the branch of a terebinth tree, Absalom “suspended between the earth and sky”, is about to die stabbed by one of Joab’s lances (2 Sam 13; 18, 5).

Made in Rome at the beginning of 1790s, this sheet is characterized by the strength of its drawing and for the intelligence of the composition based on the figure of the victim in a pose inspired by the one of the flying angels in the The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple by Raphael, wisely adapted to the new context.

The style indicates the interests stimulated in the young Sabatelli by what he saw and admired in the pontifical capital where he arrived in 1789 when he was 17 years old, and where he remained until 1794; a stay that was decisive for the intellectual opening of the painter.

The work reveals Sabatelli’s reflections updated either on the French neoclassicism of Jacques-Louis David probably mediated by Fabre or on the enlightenment, lucid and visionary at the same time, that found in Füssli and in the Anglo-Saxon colony the most eminent exponents.

For the rapidity of execution and the masterly result of the “pen sketch” it is worth remembering the words, not without pride, of Sabatelli himself, related to his juvenile experience as the author of a nude academia  “well done on the first try” and so perfectly executed as to provoke his schoolmates’ enthusiasm; on the other hand, it was thanks to his ability in the use of this particular technique that the painter obtained a strong reputation since when he studied in Rome.

Damiano Pernati obtained for the drawing displaying the Death of Absalom an engraving for the series collected under the title Pensieri diversi di Luigi Sabatelli published in Rome in 1794. As we can deduct from the complete title of the collection Pensieri diversi di Luigi Sabatelli Pubblicati ed incisi da Damiano Pernati, Roma MDCCXCV. I disegni originali presso i Sig.ri Romero e Comp.  

Silvestra Bietoletti

Luigi Sabatelli (Florence, 21 February 1772 – Milan, 29 January 1850) was an Italian painter and engraver. He trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, acquiring a fully neoclassical style, enriched however also by novelties of a romantic type.

He settled in Rome in 1788, meeting the most important artists who gravitated towards the papal capital and here he met the cavalier Tommaso Puccini, the artist's first patron and his advisor. These are also the years when Sabatelli approached the Accademia dei Pensieri, founded by Felice Giani in 1790, and located in the Corea palace. The Academy, based on the centrality of drawing, saw the presence of personalities such as Vincenzo Camuccini, Pietro Benvenuti and Kock.

During the Roman years Luigi Sabatelli dedicated himself to graphic production, important in this period are the drawings that the artist made of the Trajan's Column.

After a long stay in the city, Luigi Sabatelli, with the financial help of the Marquis Capponi, went to Venice. In 1795 he was again in Florence where he created the fresco with The Rape of Ganymede in a cabinet of the palace of the Marquis Gerini. The work was a great success, and from then on, all the families of the Florentine nobility wanted a fresco by Sabatelli in their residence.

He became court painter to Maria Luisa of Bourbon-Spain, Queen of Etruria and Duchess of Lucca, and for her he decorated some rooms of the Pitti Palace (such as the Council of the Gods, from 1803, and the other paintings in the Iliad room). His works are also found in the complex of San Firenze (frescoes in the dome of the church), in the church of San Girolamo in Fiesole (fresco of San Girolamo) and in the chapel of the Madonna del Conforto in the Cathedral of Arezzo.

In the 1820s and 1830s he had numerous commissions for public and private clients: in the Lombard capital, for Luigia Busca Serbelloni, he decorated the dining room with The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche in the Presence of Jupiter.

From 1808 until his death in 1850, which occurred in Milan in his home at via Fiori Oscuri n.11, he taught at the Brera Academy.