DESUBLEO, Michele

Michele Desubleo, also called Michele Fiammingo or Michele di Giovanni de Sobleau, Flemish painter active in northern Italy. He learned his trade in Flanders in the workshop of Abraham Janssens together with his stepbrother Nicolas Régnier, with whom he moved to Rome in the first half of the 1620s. He was employed in Bologna around 1630 in the workshop of Guido Reni who exerted a crucial influence on him. He worked for a long time in the Veneto region and there is evidence of his presence in 1665 in Parma, where the significant paintings he left include a large altarpiece with the Madonna and Saints for the Cathedral and a canvas on the secular subject of Sacred Love Triumphing over Profane Love.

Many of his works are still in Rome, including three in the private apartments of the Palazzo Colonna.

David with the Head of Goliath

The present painting depicts a young man in a three-quarter pose, donning a feathered cap and holding a sword in his left hand. We find here obvious reminiscences of Caravaggio’s painting. Nevertheless, Desubleo shows a clear tendency towards abstraction of form, pondering the classicising idealization of Domenichino’s figures, and this would be one of the hallmarks of his art throughout his long career. This stylistic orientation makes Desubleo one of the leading exponents of Italian classicism.

David with the Head of Goliath

David with the Head of Goliath (detail)