SIMONE CANTARINI (Pesaro, 1612 - Verona, 1648) Child drinking Blood on paper, 22.3X16 cm Provenance: Milan, Riccoboni collection Milan, private collection According to Malvasia, Cantarini learned his first lessons in Pesaro in the workshops of Giovan Giacomo Pandolfi and Claudio Ridolfi, whose Venetian temperament predisposed the young man to a peculiar chromatic sensitivity, not to mention the influence of Federico Barocci. Moving to Bologna and frequenting Guido Reni's workshop took place around the early 1630s until 1635, and we can say that Cantarini was already an experienced painter. After returning home, Cantarini stayed in Rome to study classical sculpture and Renaissance painting, before returning to Bologna when Reni died in 1642. Having said this, the artist was undoubtedly the best pupil of the Bolognese master, the only painter in his circle capable of expressing a personal style characterised by a happy pictorialism and compositional creativity. Not to be outdone, from a qualitative point of view, was his graphic production, often of small format within which the figures are animated by an energetic and vibrant sign, with fast shading in parallel strokes, which would influence the style of the Bolognese draughtsmen of the following century. The attribution was confirmed by Daniele Benati on a photograph.