A young couple in masquerade costume

Published by Daniela Semprebene in 2011 as a work by Angelo Caroselli (loc. cit.), this painting, along with its pendant, were excluded from the more recent monograph by Marta Rossetti (M. Rossetti, Angelo Caroselli (1585-1652), pittore romano: copista, pasticheur, restauratore, conoscitore, Rome, 2015). Rossetti considers both paintings to be by the so-called Pseudo-Caroselli (written communication, 19 July 2023). Possibly of French or Flemish origin, but educated in Rome alongside the better-known Caroselli, Pseudo-Caroselli has been the focus of extensive scholarship (see R. Longhi, ‘Ter Bruggen e la parte nostra’, Vita Artistica, II, 1927, pp. 95-116 and V. Sgarbi ‘Pseudo-Caroselli, La morte di Cleopatra’, Quaderni del Barocco - Dipinti inediti del Barocco Italiano da collezioni private, 16, 2012). Due to the varying quality of paintings attributed to Pseudo-Caroselli, Rossetti argues that the pseudonym encompasses more than just one artist active in the ambit of Angelo Caroselli (M. Rosetti, I pittori della luce: da Caravaggio a Paolini, V. Sgarbi ed., exhibition catalogue, Milan, 2021, pp. 139-141). She further notes that the roughly thirty paintings ascribed to Pseudo-Caroselli are linked by moralizing—often necromantic and erotic—themes and are frequently executed on less common supports, such as slate and copper. This rosy-cheeked couple painted on slate is therefore a typical example of Pseudo-Caroselli's work.

Rossetti has proposed that Pseudo-Caroselli (or at least one of the artists encompassed by this sobriquet) may be identifiable as one ‘Francesco orefice pigionante...’ (Francesco, goldsmith, tenant) who lived with Angelo Caroselli in 1642-43. This Francesco, who according to archival evidence was also a painter, could be the son of the Parisian goldsmith and jeweler Henri Cousin (M. Rossetti, 2015, op. cit., pp. 453, 596 & 598). Indeed the meticulously sculptural, almost trompe l’oeil rendering of lace, gold, and still-life elements of Pseudo-Caroselli’s paintings make such an identification particularly convincing.

We are grateful to Prof. Marta Rossetti for endorsing the attribution of this painting to Pseudo-Caroselli on the basis of photographs.