Angelo and Pseudo Caroselli.

Once upon a time there was only one Caroselli. But then someone noticed stylistic discrepancies within the oeuvre attributed to him and decided, dammit, that there had to be two of them!

Angelo Caroselli was an Italian painter of the early 17th century and Pseudo-Caroselli was, well, nobody knows, except that his or her work was close enough to Angelo's in style and subject matter to be confused with his. Both of them like to get in your face and confront you with allegory. Angelo is more accomplished and Pseudo is weirder (and has an obsession with fabrics). I think they're both rather wonderful.

I came across the two of them when idly browsing pictures of witches on wikimedia commons. The Carosellis like to paint witches. Here's one of Angelo's. The strega is conjuring an image of a sabbat by cooking something in an upturned skull. You can say what you like, but Rembrandt was never this much fun.



And here's one of Pseudo's. Take a good look in that mirror. There's something remarkably peculiar going on behind you.



I do love the by-ways of art history.

One More Strega

No, I can't help myself. Let's have one more.

I think this has to be by Pseudo- only he/she's modelled his/her witch very closely on the one by Angelo in my pervious post- but then dressed her up in one of the fantastical headdresses he/she loves so much.