Pier Francesco Mola
Encyclopedia
Pier Francesco Mola was an Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 painter of the High Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

, mainly active around Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

.

Biography

Mola was born at Coldrerio
Coldrerio
Coldrerio is a municipality in the district of Mendrisio in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.-History:Coldrerio is first mentioned in 852 as Caledrano. In 1170 it was mentioned as Calderario, in 1185 as Caldirera and in 1187 as Coldrario.Archeological finds in the area provide evidence of a...

 (now in Ticino
Ticino
Canton Ticino or Ticino is the southernmost canton of Switzerland. Named after the Ticino river, it is the only canton in which Italian is the sole official language...

, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

). At the age of four, he moved to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 with his father Giovanni Battista, a painter. With the exception of the years 1633–40 and 1641–47, during which he resided in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 and Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

, respectively, he lived for the rest of his life in Rome.

His early training was with the late mannerist painter Cavalier D'Arpino, and he worked under the classicizing Francesco Albani
Francesco Albani
Francesco Albani or Albano was an Italian Baroque painter.-Early years in Bologna:Born 1578 in Bologna, his father was a silk merchant who intended to instruct his son in the same trade; but by age twelve, Albani became an apprentice under the competent mannerist painter Denis Calvaert, where he...

.

His masterpiece is the fresco in the gallery of Alexander VII in the Quirinal Palace
Quirinal Palace
The Quirinal Palace is a historical building in Rome, Italy, the current official residence of the President of the Italian Republic. It is located on the Quirinal Hill, the tallest of the seven hills of Rome...

  Gallery, entitled Joseph making himself known to his Brethren (1657). He made six versions of The Flight into Egypt, the earliest and best of which is the first one, The Rest on the Flight into Egypt
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Mola)
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt is a painting by the Italian Baroque master Pier Francesco Mola , in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City....

.

He was elected Principe of the Accademia di San Luca
Accademia di San Luca
The Accademia di San Luca, was founded in 1577 as an association of artists in Rome, under the directorship of Federico Zuccari, with the purpose of elevating the work of "artists", which included painters, sculptors and architects, above that of mere craftsmen. Other founders included Girolamo...

, the Roman artists' professional association, in 1662, but his last years were neither profitable nor prolific. One of his pupils was Antonio Gherardi
Antonio Gherardi
Antonio Gherardi was an Italian painter, architect, and sculptor of the Baroque style, active mainly in and near Rome and his native city of Rieti....

.

With his looser style and handling, more naturalistic palette, and interest in exploring landscape elements, Mola rebelled against the prevailing, highly-theoretical classicism of such leading 17th-century Roman painters as Andrea Sacchi
Andrea Sacchi
Andrea Sacchi was an Italian painter of High Baroque Classicism, active in Rome. A generation of artists who shared his style of art include the painters Nicolas Poussin and Giovanni Battista Passeri, the sculptors Alessandro Algardi and François Duquesnoy, and the contemporary biographer Giovanni...

.

In February 2007, a painting depicting an astronomer and identified as a lost work of Pier Francesco Mola was auctioned in California for $600,000. Some Mola works have sold for considerably higher prices.

Anthology of works


Other sources


Pier Francesco Mola 1612 - 1666, Electa 1989, Lugano, Museo Cantonale d'Arte
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