Francesco Zuccarelli
Francesco Zuccarelli (15 August 1702 – 30 December 1788) was an Italian Rococo painter.
He was born at Pitigliano, in southern Tuscany, where he initially apprenticed with Paolo Anesi. He then worked in Rome with Pietro Nelli and perhaps Andrea Locatelli.[1]
After a stay of at least three years in Florence, in 1732 he moved to Venice[2], where he enjoyed the patronage of, among others, Marshal Schulenburg, Consul Smith , and Francesco Algarotti, who recommended him to the Elector of Saxony, Augustus III of Poland.[3] Zuccarelli excelled as a landscape painter, with small figures reminiscent of Claude; his range also included religious and mythological works. The Tuscan introduced a more mellow and airy palette to the typically Venetian colours,[4] and his earliest known paintings from Venice reveal the influence of Alessandro Magnasco, and more lastingly, of Marco Ricci.[5] He often collaborated with other artists, including Bernardo Bellotto and Antonio Visentini;[6] in the mid-1740s, under the auspices of Consul Smith, he produced with Visentini a notable series featuring neo-Palladian architecture, as can be seen in their oil painting, Capriccio with a View of Burlington House, London (1746, The Royal Collection).
Francesco travelled to England to 1752, where his decorative talent resulted in diverse work, including the design of tapestries.[7] Sometime around 1760 he turned to Shakespeare, depicting a scene from Macbeth where Macbeth and Banquo encounter the witches, one of the first eighteenth-century painters to portray this kind of subject.[8] In 1762 he held a sale of his paintings at Prestage and Hobbs in London[9] before his departure for Italy. In the same year, King George III acquired twenty-five of Zuccarelli's paintings through the purchase of much of Consul Smith's extensive art collection and library in Venice.[10] Zuccarelli was induced to journey back to London in 1765 by his friend Algarotti's bequest of a cameo and group of drawings made to Lord Chatham.[11] On this second visit he was lauded by the English nobility and critics alike, and invited to exhibit at leading art societies;[12] moreover, King George III is said to have commissioned the large canvas, River Landscape with the Finding of Moses (1768), now at Windsor Castle.[13] Francesco Zuccarelli was a founding member, in 1768, of the Royal Academy of Arts, and on his return to Italy in 1771 he was elected President of the Venetian Academy. He finally settled in Florence, where he died in 1788.[14]
His paintings often bear a mark representing a pumpkin, a pictorial representation of his name, which signifies little pumpkin.[15]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Wittkower, Rudolf (1999). Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600-1750. Vol. III (Late Baroque). Sixth edition, revised by Joseph Connors and Jennifer Montagu. Yale University Press. p. 102.
- ^ Spadotto, Federica (2007). F rancesco Zuccarelli. Catalogue raisonné. Preface by Filippo Pedrocco. Milan: Bruno Alfieri. pp. 400. ISBN 978-88-902804-1-2. http://www.spadottofederica.it/index1.html. There is some disagreement about the timing and extent of Zuccarelli's movements from his Florentine period in the late 1720s to his arrival in Venice, which a few commentators date to 1730. See Spadotto, pp. 12-15
- ^ Theodoli, Olimpia (Contributor). (1995). Martineau, Jane and Robison, Andrew. ed. The Glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- ^ Theodoli, Olimpia (1995).
- ^ Spadotto, Federica (2007).
- ^ Theodoli, Olimpia (1995).
- ^ Levey, Michael (1959). "Francesco Zuccarelli in England". Italian Studies XVI.
- ^ Levey, Michael (1959).
- ^ Prestage and Hobbs (1762). Pictures, of Mr. Zuccarelli, painted by himself, consisting of variety in landscapes, history. London.
- ^ Levey, Michael (1964). The Later Italian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen. London: The Phaidon Press.
- ^ Levey, Michael (1959).
- ^ Theodoli, Olimpia (1995).
- ^ Pyne, W.H. (1819). The history of the royal residences of Windsor Castle, St. James's Palace, Carlton House, Kensington Palace, Hampton Court, Buckingham House, and Frogmore. : By W.H. Pyne. Illustrated by one hundred highly finished and coloured engravings, fac-similes of original drawings by the most eminent artists. London: A.Dry. Cited in Levey, Michael (1964).
- ^ Theodoli, Olimpia (1995).
- ^ Spooner, Shearjashub (1853). A biographical and critical dictionary of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects : from ancient to modern times ; with the monograms, ciphers, and marks used by distinguished artists to certify their works. New York: Putnam.
[edit] External links
- "Francesco Zuccarelli (1702-88)" 14 works, The Royal Collection, e-gallery.
- "Francesco Zuccarelli (Italian Rococo Era Painter, 1702-1788)" Artcyclopedia
- "Francisco Zuccarelli, R.A." in Nollekens and His Times: Comprehending a Life of That Celebrated Sculptor; and Memoirs of Several Contemporary Artists, from the Time Of Roubiliac, Hogarth, and Reynolds, to that of Fuseli, Flaxman, and Blake. John Thomas Smith Keeper of the Prints and Drawings in the British Museum. Edited and annotated by Wilfred Whitten. Vol II. London: Henry Colburn, 1829.
- "Francis Zuccarelli, R.A." in Anecdotes of painters who have resided or been born in England : with critical remarks on their productions; by Edward Edwards, deceased, late teacher of perspective, and associate, in the Royal Academy; intended as a continuation to The anecdotes of painting by the late Horace Earl of Orford. Edward Edwards. London : printed by Luke Hansard & Sons, for Leigh and Sotheby, W.J. and J. Richardson, R. Faulder, T. Payne, and J. White, 1808.
- Tassi, Francesco Maria (1793); Vite de'pittori, scultori e architetti Bergamaschi; Locatelli; Bergamo, Italy. See pp. viii, xii, xiv, xv, 36. Francesco Maria Tassi was a long-time friend of Zuccarelli. The work was published posthumously.
"Zuccarelli, Francesco". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
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