Corrado Giaquinto
Encyclopedia
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
painter.
Early training and move to Rome
He was born in MolfettaMolfetta
Molfetta is a city and comune of the province of Bari in the southern Italian region of Apulia, on the Adriatic coast, at sea-level. It is 25 km WNW of Bari.It has a well restored old city, and its own dialect.- History :...
. As a boy he apprenticed with a modest local painter Saverio Porta, (c1667–1725), escaping the religious career his parents had intended for him. By October 1724, he left Molfetta, and along with his contemporaries Francesco de Mura
Francesco de Mura
Francesco de Mura was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque period, active mainly in Naples and Turin. His late work reflects the style of neoclassicism....
(1696–1784) and Giuseppe Bonito
Giuseppe Bonito
Giuseppe Bonito was a Neapolitan painter of the Rococo period. Giuseppe Bonito is known for genre depictions on canvas. Many of Gaspare Traversi's paintings had previously been attributed to Bonito....
(1707–1789), he trained from 1719–23 in the prolific Neapolitan
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
studio of Francesco Solimena
Francesco Solimena
Francesco Solimena was a prolific Italian painter of the Baroque era, one of an established family of painters and draughtsmen.-Biography:Francesco Solimena was born in Canale di Serino, near Avellino....
, either with Solimena or his pupil, Nicola Maria Rossi. Throughout his life, Giaquinto was a peripatetic painter, with long sojourns in Naples, Rome (between 1723–53), Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
(1733 and 1735–39), and Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
(1753–1761).
In 1723, he moved to Rome to work in the studio of Sebastiano Conca
Sebastiano Conca
Sebastiano Conca was an Italian painter.He was born at Gaeta, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, and apprenticed in Naples under Francesco Solimena. In 1706, along with his brother Giovanni, who acted as his assistant, he settled at Rome, where for several years he worked in chalk only, to...
. He painted in San Lorenzo in Damaso
San Lorenzo in Damaso
San Lorenzo in Damaso is a basilica church in Rome, Italy, one of several dedicated to the Roman deacon and martyr Saint Lawrence...
, San Giovanni Calibita, and the ceiling at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme
Santa Croce in Gerusalemme
The Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem is a Roman Catholic parish church and minor basilica in Rome, Italy. It is one of the Seven Pilgrim Churches of Rome....
. In March 1727, with Giuseppe Rossi as an assistant, Giaquinto opened an independent studio near the Ponte Sisto
Ponte Sisto
Ponte Sisto is a footbridge in Rome's historic centre, spanning the river Tiber. It connects Via del Pettinari in the Rione of Regola to Piazza Trilussa in Trastevere...
, in the parish of Saint Giovanni of the Malva in Rome. In 1734, he married Caterina Silvestri Agate.
The first documented work by his hand is Christ crucified with the Madonna, Saint John Evangelist, and Magdalene commissioned in 1730 by king John V of Portugal for the cathedral of the Mafra
Mafra, Portugal
Mafra is a town in Mafra Municipality in Portugal.The town is 28 km north-west from the center of Lisbon. It is mostly known for the sumptuous Palácio de Mafra , which also makes it a popular tourist destination in the Lisbon area...
. In 1731, he received a prestigious commission, to execute frescoes in the church of San Nicola dei Lorenesi
San Nicola dei Lorenesi
The Church of Saint Nicholas of the Lorrains is a Roman Catholic church dedicated to Saint Nicholas and the apostle Saint Andrew. It is one of the national churches in Rome dedicated to France...
: Saint Nicholas water gush from cliff, three theologic and cardinal Virtues, and in the cupola Paradise. The latest restoration confirms Giaquinto's stylistic independence from Solimena, and reveals his stylistic dependence on Luca Giordano
Luca Giordano
Luca Giordano was an Italian late Baroque painter and printmaker in etching. Fluent and decorative, he worked successfully in Naples and Rome, Florence and Venice, before spending a decade in Spain....
.
Mature work
In 1733, the architect and artistic director for the House of Savoy, Filippo JuvarraFilippo Juvarra
Filippo Juvarra was an Italian architect and stage set designer.-Biography:Filippo Juvarra was an Italian Baroque architect working in the early part of the eighteenth century. He was born in Messina, Sicily, to a family of goldsmiths and engravers...
, invited Giaquinto to Turin, where he completed an altarpiece of Saint John Nepomunk. He then decorated the ceiling of a Villa della Regina
Villa della Regina
The Villa della Regina is a palace outside the city of Turin, Italy. It was originally built by the House of Savoy in the 17th century.-History:...
with a Triumph of the House of Savoy, destroyed during World War II, Death of Adonis and Apollo & Daphne, and Story of Aenid. Giaquinto returned briefly to Rome in 1735, where his wife died soon after childbirth. He then returned for the next three years, to complete frescoes for the chapel of Saint Giuseppe in the Turinese church of Santa Teresa; they depict events in the life and death of Saint Joseph, including his Assumption and Rest in Egypt.
In 1738 Giaquinto returned to Rome, and during the next year he executed in fresco an Assumption of the Virgin for the church of Rocca di Papa
Rocca di Papa
Rocca di Papa is a small town and comune in the province of Rome, Lazio, Italy. It is one of the Castelli Romani about 25 km south east of Rome on the Alban Hills. It is bounded by the other communes of Velletri, Rocca Priora, Monte Compatri, Grottaferrata, Albano and Marino...
, a commission for a relative of Pope Alexander VIII Ottoboni. In 1740, Giaquinto became a member of the Academy of Saint Luke and donated his sketch of Immaculate Conception with Elias the prophet for the Turinese church of the Carmine, a canvas commissioned by marquis Giuseppe Turinetti di Priero, which finally reached Turin in 1741. A report of 1742 states that Pope Benedict XIV "was taken to the church of San Giovanni Calabita ... where he observed with much pleasure the restoration of that Church embellished with altapieces from the Painter Signor Corrado Napolitano.
In Madrid, he was patronized by Ferdinand VI, and was ultimately appointed director of the Academy of San Fernando. His influence there was felt by painters such as González Velázquez, José del Castillo
José del Castillo
Castillo made many attempts to become Royal Painter for the Spanish monarchy, but he was never successful. This was not due to a lack of talent, but rather because Castillo allied himself with the wrong noble. His patron, the Earl of Floridablanca, feuded bitterly with the Earl of Aranda...
, and Mariano Salvador Maella
Mariano Salvador Maella
Mariano Salvador Maella was a Spanish painter.Born in Valencia, Maella moved to Madrid, where he studied sculpture with Felipe de Castro in Madrid, and painting with a poorly known painter by the surname González. He became painter of the chamber to the king and director general of the Academia...
.
His paintings include A Kneeling Male Nude. He returned to Naples in 1762 to decorate the sacristy in San Luigi di Palazzo, the royal monastery. He died in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
in 1765.
He is described by some as an Italian François Boucher
François Boucher
François Boucher was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture...
.