1712-1793 Italian Francesco Guardi Galleries Francesco Guardi was born in Venice into a family of lesser nobility from Trentino. His father Domenico (born in 1678) and his brothers Niccolo and Gian Antonio were also painters, the latter inheriting the family workshop after the father's death in 1716. They probably all contributed as a team to some of the larger commissions later attributed to Francesco. His sister Maria Cecilia married the pre-eminent Veneto-European painter of his epoch, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. In 1735, Guardi moved to the workshop of Michele Marieschi, where he remained until 1743. His first certain works is from 1738, for a parish at Vigo d'Anuania, in Trentino. In this period he worked alongside his better-known brother, Gian Antonio. The first work signed by Francesco is a Saint Adoring the Eucarist (circa 1739). His works in this period included landscapes as well as figure representations. His early vedutas show influence both from Canaletto and Luca Carlevarijs. On February 15, 1757 he married Maria Mattea Pagani, the daughter of painter Matteo Pagani. In the same year his brother Gian Antonio died and his first son, Vincenzo, was born. His second son, Giacomo, was born in 1764. In 1763 he worked in Murano, in the church of San Pietro Martire, finishing a Miracle of a Dominican Saint clearly influenced by Alessandro Magnasco in its quasi-expressionistic style. Francesco Guardi's most important later works include the Doge's Feasts, a series of twelve canvases celebrating the ceremonies held in 1763 for the election of Doge Alvise IV Mocenigo. In his later years, Canaletto's influence on his art diminished, as showed by the Piazzetta in the Ca' d'Oro of Venice. In circa 1778, he painted the severe Holy Trinity Appearing to Sts. Peter and Paul in the parish church of Roncegno. Miracle of a Dominicane Saint (1763), Lugano, private collection.In 1782 Guardi was commissioned by the Venetian government six canvases to celebrate the visit of the Russian Archdukes in the city, of which only two remain, and two others for that of Pope Pius VI. On September 12 of that year he was admitted to the Fine Art Academy of Venice. A stronger attention to colours is present in late works such as the Concerto of 80 Orphans of 1782, now in Munich, in the Façade of Palace with Staircase in the Accademia Carrara of Bergamo. Guardi died at Venice in 1793.  Related Paintings of Francesco Guardi :. | rThe Doge Grants an Andience in the Sala del Collegin in the Ducal Palace (mk05) | View of a Square with Palace | The Doge Takes Part in the Festivities in the Piazzetta on Shrove Tuesday (mk05) | Venetian Gala Concert (mk08) | Little Square of St. Marcus |
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William Roos
William Roos (1808 - 4 July 1878) was a Welsh artist and engraver. Several of Roos' portraits, mainly of notable Welsh figures, are owned by the National Library of Wales.
Grigory Gagarin
Russian: 11 May [O.S. 29 April] 1811 - 30 January [O.S. 18 January] 1893) was a Russian painter, Major General and administrator. Grigory Gagarin was born in Saint Petersburg to the noble Rurikid princely Gagarin family. His father, Prince Grigory Ivanovich Gagarin (Saint Petersburg, 17 March 1782 - Tegernsee, 12 February 1837), was a Russian diplomat in France and later the ambassador to Italy. His father married in Saint Petersburg in 1809 his mother Yekaterina Petrovna Sojmonova (Saint Petersburg, 23 May 1790 - Moscow, 27 February 1873). Thus until the age 13 the boy was with his family in Paris and Rome and then studied in the collegium Tolomei in Siena. Grigory did not receive a formal artistic education, but took private lessons from the famous Russian painter Karl Briullov who at that time lived in Italy. In 1832 he returned to Saint Petersburg, became acquainted with Alexander Pushkin and illustrated his works The Queen of Spades and The Tale of Tsar Saltan.He also became close to the opposition Circle of Sixteen and Mikhail Lermontov.
Antonio Ponce
Spanish, 1608-1662,Spanish painter. He had an undistinguished career in Madrid as a painter of still-lifes and flower-pieces. In 1624 Ponce was apprenticed to Juan van der Hamen y Leen, whose niece he married in 1628. The format of Ponce's compositions and some of his motifs derive from works by van der Hamen, though lacking their subtlety of composition, spatial clarity and formal conviction. In Vase of Flowers, signed and dated 1650 (Strasbourg, Mus. B.-A.), Ponce's style shows laboured imitation of van der Hamen's: his dry execution results in a paradoxically airless and petrified quality. Ponce was always a derivative artist, and some of his still-lifes with seasonal themes are similar to works by Francisco de Barrera, another modest painter with whom he was documented in the 1630s. Paintings from the 1640s and 1650s depicting baskets of fruit and bunches of grapes against light backgrounds are characterized by compositional informality, softer lighting and freer brushwork, through which Ponce attempted to convey the textures of objects and endow the subject with greater naturalness.