1657-1747 Italian Francesco Solimena Gallery Francesco Solimena was born in Canale di Serino, near Avellino. He received early training from his father, Angelo Solimena, with whom he executed a Paradise for the cathedral of Nocera (place where he spend a big part of his life) and a Vision of St. Cyril of Alexandria for the church of San Domenico at Solofra. He settled in Naples in 1674, there he worked in the studio of Francesco di Maria and later Giacomo del Po[1]. He apparently had taken the clerical orders, but was patronized early on, and encouraged to become an artist by Cardinal Vincenzo Orsini (later Pope Benedict XIII)[2]. By the 1680s, he had independent fresco commissions, and his active studio came to dominate Neapolitan painting from the 1690s through the first four decades of the 18th century. He modeled his art??for he was a highly conventional painter??after the Roman Baroque masters, Luca Giordano and Giovanni Lanfranco, and Mattia Preti, whose technique of warm brownish shadowing Solimena emulated. Solimena painted many frescoes in Naples, altarpieces, celebrations of weddings and courtly occasions, mythological subjects, characteristically chosen for their theatrical drama, and portraits. His settings are suggested with a few details??steps, archways, balustrades, columns??concentrating attention on figures and their draperies, caught in pools and shafts of light. Art historians take pleasure in identifying the models he imitated or adapted in his compositions. His numerous preparatory drawings often mix media, combining pen-and-ink, chalk and watercolor washes. Francesco Solimena 'A study for the fresco cycle in the Sacristy of San Paolo Maggiore in Naples', Whitfield Fine Art.A typical example of the elaborately constructed allegorical "machines" of his early mature style, fully employing his mastery of chiaroscuro, is the Allegory of Rule (1690) from the Stroganoff collection, which has come to the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. He apparently hoped to see his son Orazio follow a career in the law, for which he received a doctorate (de Domenici), but also became a painter. His large, efficiently structured atelier became a virtual academy, at the heart of cultural life in Naples. Among his many pupils were Francesco de Mura (1696-1784) , Giuseppe Bonito (1707-89), Pietro Capelli, Gaspare Traversi, and most notably Corrado Giaquinto and Sebastiano Conca. The Scottish portraitist Allan Ramsay spent three years in Solimena's studio. Solimena amassed a fortune, was made a baron and lived in sumptuous style founded on his success. Francesco Solimena died at Barra, near Naples, in 1747.  Related Paintings of Francesco Solimena :. | L Assomption et le Couronnement de la Vierge | Self-Portrait | Dido Receiveng Aeneas and Cupid Disguised as Ascanius | Allegory of Reign | Self portrait |
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Ulrika Pasch
(10 July 1735 - 2 April 1796), also known as Ulla Pasch, was a Swedish painter and miniaturist. She was one of few female artists known in Scandinavia before the 19th century. She was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts (1773). Ulrika Pasch was born in an artistic family, daughter of the painter Lorens Pasch the Elder, and sister of the future painter Lorens Pasch the Younger. Her uncle, Johan Pasch, was also a painter. In the 1750s, when her brother was studying art abroad, her father's career declined severely, and Ulrika was forced to become a housekeeper in the home of her maternal aunt's widower. Her uncle however allowed her to spend a lot of time developing her artistic talent, and from 1756, she had become a professional portrait painter and was able to support her father and her sister in this way. After her father's death, she lived with her sister and set up her own studio. When her brother returned to Sweden in 1766, she had been a professional artist for ten years and her clientele had moved from the middle class to the upper classes and the aristocracy. Ulrika Pasch and her brother then worked together as professional artists, shared their studio and guided each other in their work; their collaboration was one of mutual respect and harmony, and she is known to have helped him painting the textiles and costumes, a work he found tiring. Their baby-sister Helena Sofia (1744-96) took care of their household; she is described as somewhat talented in art as well, but she spent her life as her siblings "dutiful" house-keeper, and is said to have been deeply devoted to especially Ulrika.
Lieve Verschuier
(1627-1686) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of maritime subjects. He was born in Rotterdam, and is documented in Amsterdam in 1651, where he possibly learned to paint from Simon de Vlieger. He traveled to Rome in 1653 as a young man with Jan Vermeer van Utrecht and became friends with Willem Drost and Johann Carl Loth.. On his return he settled in Rotterdam in 1667 where he remained, painting marine scenes, and Italianate landscapes. His maritime works are valued today for their historical value illustrating the art of shipbuilding in the 17th century.
Francois de Troy
French Baroque Era Painter, 1645-1730 was a French painter and engraver who became principal painter to King James II in exile at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Director of the Academie Royale de peinture et de sculpture. One of a family of artists, Troy was born in Toulouse, the son of Nicolas de Troy (1608 - 15 September 1684), a painter in that city,and was the brother of Jean de Troy (4 April 1638 - 25 June 1691).Troy was taught the basic skills of painting by his father, and perhaps also by the more worldly Antoine Durand. François de Troy is not to be confused with his son, the portrait painter Jean-François de Troy (1679-1752), who studied under him At some time after 1662, Troy went to Paris to study portrait painting under Claude Lefebvre (1633-1675) and Nicolas-Pierre Loir (1624 - C1679]. A. P. F. Robert-Dumesnil states that this occurred when Troy was aged twenty-four. In 1669, Troy married his master Nicolas-Pierre Loir's sister-in-law, Jeanne Cotelle. In 1671, he was approved by the Academie Royale de peinture et de sculpture. In 1674, he was received into the Academy as a history painter, with a reception piece (morceau de reception) entitled Mercure coupant la tete d'Argus ('Mercury cutting off the head of Argus'). Troy's early known works include tapestry designs for Madame de Montespan, one of the many mistresses of Louis XIV of France, and paintings with religious and mythological subjects. In the 1670s, he became friendly with Roger de Piles, who introduced him to Dutch and Flemish painting,