Giuseppe Cades

Giuseppe Cades (March 4, 1750 – December 8, 1799) was an Italian sculptor, painter, and engraver. Cades was born in Rome. He studied at the Accademia di San Luca under Mancini and Domenico Corvi, gaining a prize in 1765 with his picture of Tobias Recovering His Sight.

In 1766, after quarreling with his master, he visited Florence. Two years later, he executed an altarpiece for the church of San Benedetto in Turin and in 1771 another for the church of Santi Apostoli. He also decorated the Palazzo Chigi with frescoes, landscapes, and scenes from Tasso. He has left two etchings, Christ Blessing Little Children and The Death of Leonardo da Vinci.

Cades' early commissions were influenced by the Baroque Classicist painter Carlo Maratta. In the mid-1770s, Cades came to know Swiss painter Johann Heinrich Fuseli and toured Northern Italy, and his work began to show Mannerist and Renaissance influences as well.

He again joined the Accademia di San Luca of Rome, now as a fellow, in 1786. Late in life, Catherine the Great of Russia commissioned an artwork from him. He died in Rome.