Corrado Giaquinto Madonna and Child in Glory appearing to St Stephen and three other Saints About 1760 - 1766

Biography

Born 1703
Died 1766
Nationality Italian

Hugely prolific and technically brilliant, Giaquinto was the leading painter in the prevailing Rococo style in eighteenth-century Rome. He became renowned above all for his grandiose fresco cycles. He trained in Naples under Nicola Maria Rossi and then probably in Francesco Solimena’s studio, before transferring to Rome in 1727. There he collaborated with Sebastiano Conca on the dome of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. In the following decades he received important church commissions in his own right, notably in San Nicola dei Lorenesi, San Giovanni Calibita and Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. In 1733-5 Giaquinto was working on the decoration of several of the royal residences in Turin, which exposed him to a broader range of modern European styles. In 1753 he accepted an invitation from Ferdinand VI to work at the Spanish court, where he was to remain for nearly a decade. He was extensively involved in the fresco decoration of the new Royal Palace, was appointed director of the recently founded Royal Academy of San Fernando, and of the Royal Tapestry works. Giaquinto exerted a particularly strong and enduring influence on art in Spain. His last years were spent back in Naples, where he worked on the decoration of the sacristy of the royal monastery of San Luigi in Palazzo.