1791-1882 Italian Francesco Hayez Galleries Hayez came from a relatively poor family from Venice. His father was of French origin while his mother, Chiara Torcella, was from Murano. The child Francesco, youngest of five sons, was brought up by his mother sister, who had married Giovanni Binasco, a well-off shipowner and collector of art. From childhood he showed a predisposition for drawing, so his uncle apprenticed him to an art restorer. Later he became a student of the painter Francisco Magiotto with whom he continued his studies for three years. He was admitted to the painting course of the New Academy of Fine Arts in 1806, where he studied under Teodoro Matteini. In 1809 he won a competition from the Academy of Venice for one year of study at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome. He remained in Rome until 1814, then moved to Naples where he was commissioned by Joachim Murat to paint a major work depicting Ulysses at the court of Alcinous. In the mid 1830s he attended the Salotto Maffei salon in Milan, hosted by Clara Maffei (whose portrait Hayez painted for her husband), and he was still in Milan in 1850 when he was appointed director of the Academy of Brera there. Assessment of the career of Hayez is complicated by the fact that he often did not sign or date his works. Often the date indicated from the evidence is that at which the work was acquired or sold, not of its creation. Moreover he often painted the same compositions several times with minimal variations, or even with no variation. His early works show the influence of Ingres and the Nazarene movement. His later work participates in the Classical revival.  Related Paintings of Francesco Hayez :. | Portrat des Kaisers Ferdinand I. von osterreich. | Meeting of Jacob and Esau | Rinaldo and Armida | Portrait of Countess Antonietta Negroni Prati Morosini as a child | Zusammentreffen von Jakob und Esau |
Related Artists:
Thomas Robins the Elder
1716-1770
Thomas Sully
1783-1872 Thomas Sully Galleries Sully became a professional painter at age 18 in 1801. He studied face-painting under Gilbert Stuart in Boston for three weeks. After some time in Virginia with this brother, Sully moved to New York, after which he moved to Philadelphia in 1806, where he resided for the remainder of his life. In 1809 he traveled to London for nine months of study under Benjamin West. Sully's 1824 portraits of John Quincy Adams, who became President within the year, and then the Marquis de Lafayette appear to have brought him to the forefront of his day. (His Adams portrait may be seen in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.) Many famous Americans of the day had their portraits painted by him. In 1837-1838 he was in London to paint Queen Victoria at the request of Philadelphia's St. George's Society. His daughter Blanche assisted him as the Queen's "stand-in", modeling the Queen's costume when she was not available. One of Sully's portraits of Thomas Jefferson is owned by the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society at the University of Virginia and hangs in that school's Rotunda. Another Jefferson portrait, this one head-to-toe, hangs at West Point, as is his portrait of Alexander Macomb (American general). Sully's own index indicates that he produced 2631 paintings from 1801, most of which are currently in the United States. His style resembles that of Thomas Lawrence. Though best known as a portrait painter, Sully also made historical pieces and landscapes. An example of the former is the 1819 Passage of the Delaware, now on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Giovanni Battista Crespi
Giovanni Battista Crespi (23 December 1573 - 23 October 1632), called Il Cerano, was an Italian painter, sculptor, and architect. He was born in Romagnano Sesia, the son of a painter, Raffaele Crespi, and moved to Cerano with his family some years later. In 1591 he is known to have been living in Milan. True to the Counter-Reformation piety zealously expressed in Milanese art of his time, his paintings focus on mysteries and mystical episodes in saintly life. The crowded canvases and the angles recall Mannerism, but his paintings show an emotion that evokes common sentiments in Baroque art. Along with other artists, he completed a series of paintings (Quadroni of St. Charles) of the life of St. Charles Borromeo[1] for the Duomo of Milan, an altarpiece with the Baptism of St. Augustine for San Marco (Milan), and a Mass of St. Gregory for the Basilica of San Vittore in Varese (1615-17). Also see the nightmarish, St. Gregory Delivers the Soul of a Monk (1617), also in San Vittore.