Dancing Angel with Cymbals

This is one of several extant preparatory studies for the angels that decorate the cupola of the Chapel of Saint Stanislao, one of the four secondary domes in Genoa’s principal Jesuit church, Sant’Ambrogio. By this late stage of Lorenzo’s development, in his paintings and drawings, the reference to the earliest exponents of classical Baroque style, and to Domenichino in particular, is explicit. Undiminished in his instinct and competence as a decorator in the tradition of his city and family, Lorenzo at this stage also bears relation to French academic painting and portends the rise of Neoclassicism