Domenico Bettini

Domenico Bettini (1644–1705) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, mainly depicting still-life subjects.

Biography

He was born in Florence on the 21st of July 1644; at twelve he entered the workshop of the Florentine painter Jacopo Vignali, where he remained for about eight years: from this period of his formation are some lunettes frescoed in the first cloister of St. Maria del Carmine, two of which (Elijah Fed by an Angel and Elijah Builds a Temple on the Site of the Sacrifice of Abraham) are signed and dated 166 ... (1660?); four others of the same cloister (Elijah Raises the Child of Sidon's Widow, Elijah Covers Elisha with his Cloak, Elijah Heals the Water of a Spring, the Children Saved by the Bears) were ascribed to him by Richa. Bettini`s signed and dated 1661 Guardian Angel was found in the church of Saints Simone and Giuda in Corniola (Empoli).

In this canvas, so clearly youthful in the uncertainties and imbalances of the composition, one easily recognizes the teachings of Vignali, and echoes of the Florentine culture of the time.

At the age of twenty the artist, recently married, left for Rome, where he was at the school of Mario Nuzzi (Mario dei Fiori) for a few years; then, as almost all the painters of that period, he went to northern Italy to study and he worked for the duke of Parma. Biographers of the early eighteenth century (Baldinucci, Sagrestani). But with regard to his activity they only list the duke of Parma, the duke of Modena (from 1670 onwards for eighteen years), the marquis Muzio Spada of Faenza from 1685 to 1701, and finally Bolognese lords. In 1703 the painter moved from Modena to Bologna, where he died on the 4th of November 1705.[1]

One of his pupils was Felice Rubbiani of Modena.[2]

Few are the precise details of his activity as the still life was considered minor painting, moreover the private destinations of the paintings, the difficulty of unequivocally defining the subjects in the inventories, the conspicuous number of the works, hindered the drafting of a reliable catalog.

References

  • Bryan, Michael (1886). Robert Edmund Graves, ed. Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical (Volume I: A-K). York St. #4, Covent Garden, London; Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18, 2007: George Bell and Sons. p. 122.
  1. ↑ Meloni, Silvia. "- Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 9 (1967)". Treccani. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
  2. ↑ Campori,Giuseppe (1855). Gli artisti italiani e stranieri negli stati estensi catalogo storico. Modena, pp. 72–73.


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