Domenico Fetti (also spelled Feti, c. 1589 – 1623) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
BaroqueBaroque is an artistic style prevalent from the late 16th century to the early 18th century. The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church, which had decided at the time of the Council of Trent that the arts should communicate religious themes in...
painter active mainly in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
,
MantuaMantua is a city in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name.Mantua is surrounded on three sides by artificial lakes created during the 12th century. These receive the waters from the Mincio, which descend from Lake Garda...
and
VeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy, the capital of the region Veneto, a population of 271,367 . Together with Padua, the city is included in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area . The city historically was an independent nation...
.
Born in Rome to a little-known painter, Pietro Fetti, Domenico is said to have apprenticed initially under Ludovico Cigoli, or his pupil
Andrea CommodiAndrea Commodi was an Italian painter of the early-Baroque period. Born in Florence, but mostly active in Rome, he was a pupil of the painter Cigoli. He painted frescoes in the sacristy of San Carlo ai Catinari and a Fall of the Angels now in the Accademia gallery in Florence...
in Rome from circa 1604-1613. He then worked in Mantua from 1613 to 1622, patronized by the Cardinal, later Duke Ferdinando I Gonzaga.
Domenico Fetti (also spelled Feti, c. 1589 – 1623) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
BaroqueBaroque is an artistic style prevalent from the late 16th century to the early 18th century. The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church, which had decided at the time of the Council of Trent that the arts should communicate religious themes in...
painter active mainly in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
,
MantuaMantua is a city in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name.Mantua is surrounded on three sides by artificial lakes created during the 12th century. These receive the waters from the Mincio, which descend from Lake Garda...
and
VeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy, the capital of the region Veneto, a population of 271,367 . Together with Padua, the city is included in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area . The city historically was an independent nation...
.
Biography
Born in Rome to a little-known painter, Pietro Fetti, Domenico is said to have apprenticed initially under Ludovico Cigoli, or his pupil
Andrea CommodiAndrea Commodi was an Italian painter of the early-Baroque period. Born in Florence, but mostly active in Rome, he was a pupil of the painter Cigoli. He painted frescoes in the sacristy of San Carlo ai Catinari and a Fall of the Angels now in the Accademia gallery in Florence...
in Rome from circa 1604-1613. He then worked in Mantua from 1613 to 1622, patronized by the Cardinal, later Duke Ferdinando I Gonzaga. In the
Ducal PalaceThe Palazzo Ducale di Mantova is a group of buildings in the Italian city of Mantua , built between the 14th and the 17th century mainly by the noble family of Gonzaga as their royal residence in the capital of their Duchy. The buildings are connected by corridors and galleries and are enriched by...
, he painted the
Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes. The series of representations of New Testament parables he carried out for his patron's
studiolo gave rise to a popular specialty, and he and his studio often repeated his compositions.
In August or September 1622, his feuds with some prominent Mantuans led him to move to
VeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy, the capital of the region Veneto, a population of 271,367 . Together with Padua, the city is included in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area . The city historically was an independent nation...
, which for the first few decades of the seventeenth century had persisted in sponsoring Mannerist styles (epitomized by Palma the Younger and the successors of
TintorettoTintoretto was one of the greatest painters of the Venetian school and probably the last great painter of the Italian Renaissance...
and
VeronesePaolo Veronese was an Italian painter of the Renaissance in Venice, famous for paintings such as The Wedding at Cana and The Feast in the House of Levi...
). Into this mix, in the 1620s–30s, three "foreigners"—Fetti and his younger contemporaries
Bernardo StrozziBernardo Strozzi was a prominent and prolific Italian Baroque painter born and active mainly in Genoa, and also active in Venice.-Biography:Strozzi was born in Genoa. He was probably not related to the other Strozzi family....
and Jan Lys—breathed the first influences of Roman Baroque style. They adapted some of the rich coloration of Venice but adapted it to
CaravaggioMichelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily between 1593 and 1610...
-influenced realism and monumentality.
In Venice where he remained despite pleas from the Duke to return to Mantua, Fetti changed his style: his formalised painting style became more painterly and colourful. In addition, he devoted attention to smaller cabinet pieces that adapt genre imaging to religious stories. His group of paintings entitled
Parables, which represent
New TestamentThe New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christian Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament, both terms being associated with Supersessionism...
scenes, are at the
Dresden GemäldegalerieThe Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden features numerous major works of art history. Therefore it belongs to the world’s mostrenowned art collections....
. He influenced
Leonaert BramerLeonaert/Leonard Bramer alias Nestelghat was a Dutch painter, best known for probably being one of the teachers of Johannes Vermeer, although there is no similarity between their work. Bramer's dark and exotic style is unlike Vermeer's style...
.
His style appears to be influenced by
RubensSir Peter Paul Rubens was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality...
. He would likely have continued to find excellent patronage in Venice had he not died there in 1623 or 1624. Jan Lys, eight years younger, but who had arrived in Venice nearly contemporaneously, died during the plague of 1629-30. Subsequently, Fetti's style would influence the Venetians
Pietro della VecchiaPietro della Vecchia was an Italian painter.Born in Vicenza or Venice, he probably trained with Alessandro Varotari, called Padovanino, deriving a notable interest in Venetian masters such as Titian and Giorgione....
and Sebastiano Mazzone.
Some works
- The Good Samaritan (attributed, Metropolitan Museum, New York)
- Works at the Louvre
- Melancholy
- Emperor Domitian
- Eve and Laboring Adam
- Angel in the Garden
- Jacob's Dream (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)
- Portraits of Tristano Martinelli
Tristano Martinelli , called Dominus Arlecchinorum, the "Master of Harlequins", was an Italian actor in the commedia dell'arte tradition, probably the first to be called "Harlequin".- Biography :...
(Venice Accademia (illustrated right) and Hermitage MuseumThe State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture situated in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and open to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
, St Petersburg)