Bartolomeo Passerotti

Bartolomeo Passerotti was born in Bologna in 1529. Little is known about his early training and life. By 1551 the artist was in Rome, where he remained approximately for a decade, first as a pupil of the architect Jacopo Barozzi (also called Vignola), then sharing the house with his peer the painter Taddeo Zuccari. Under the influences of his masters, Passerotti incorporated the latest Roman Mannerist style into his paintings, while still retaining elements of the Bolognese tradition, profoundly shaped by Correggio’s and Parmigianino’s examples. While in Rome, Passerotti produced portraits of several popes.

On returning to in Bologna in 1560, the artist established a large studio which became the focal point of the city's artistic life. He received several important commissions, especially for religious paintings and portraits of illustrious Bolognese personalities, such as Pope Gregory XIII. Around this time his work became enriched with the lively colours of Venetian painting. Alongside his portraiture and religious commissions, Passerotti was also a master of genre and still life painting. 

Today he is remembered for his pioneering genre scenes of butcher's shops, forming a series of four paintings which were acquired by Caravaggio’s patron Ciriaco Mattei in 1603. Breaking free from the prevailing Mannerist style with their lively observations, they reflected the influence of northern painters Pieter Aertsen and Joachim Beuckelaer and prepared the way for Annibale Carracci’s genre scenes.