Corrado Giaquinto

Corrado Giaquinto (8 February 1703 – 18 April 1766) was an Italian Rococo painter.

In 1733, the architect and artistic director for the House of Savoy, Filippo Juvarra, invited Giaquinto to come to Turin, where he painted an altarpiece of Saint John Nepomuk. He then decorated the ceiling of a Villa della Regina with a Triumph of the House of Savoy, 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 St Joseph in the church of Santa Teresa in Turin; 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, 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 altarpieces 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 Antonio González Velázquez, José del Castillo, and Mariano Salvador Maella.

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 in 1766.

He is described by some as an Italian François Boucher. Among his pupils in Molfetta was Niccoló Porta.

Image and text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023