Intended to devise alternatives to the Mannerist style favored in the preceding decades,[1] this teaching academy helped propel painters of the School of Bologna to prominence.

An engraving by Agostino Carraci after the painting Love in the Golden Age by the 16th-century Flemish painter Paolo Fiammingo was the inspiration for Matisse's Le bonheur de vivre (Joy of Life).

[4] While his undoubted value in the graphic field is widely recognised, Agostino, as a painter, although admired by his contemporaries, ended up being overshadowed by the fame of his brother Annibale.

Even Giovanni Pietro Bellori, who included Agostino Carracci in his selective collection of biographies of artists (Vite de' pittori, scultori e architetti moderni, 1672), described his activity as a painter, with the sole exception of the Communion of Saint Jerome, a work that he praises, almost entirely limited to the role of supporting his younger brother Annibale, and reproaches him for having dedicated too much of his work to graphic production.

However, there have been a positive critical reevaluation of the painter, since there is now a better awareness of his artistic role, alongside his more famous relatives, and the knowledge of his personal work is now greater.