Andrea Vaccaro

Andrea Vaccaro (baptised on 8 May 1604 – 18 January 1670) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. Vaccaro was in his time one of the most successful painters in Naples, a city then under Spanish rule. Very successful and valued in his lifetime, Vaccaro and his workshop produced many religious works for local patrons as well as for export to Spanish religious orders and noble patrons.

Very little is known for certain about Andrea Vaccaro's early life. Andrea Vaccaro was born in Naples as the son of Pietro Baccaro and Gioanna di Glauso. His father practiced a legal profession. Vaccaro first applied himself to the study of literature. He then turned to art. Where it was earlier believed that he apprenticed with the late-Mannerist painter Girolamo Imparato, it is now known that Imparato died in 1607 and could thus not have been his teacher. Andrea Vaccaro was at the age of 16 apprenticed to Giovanni Tommaso Passaro, a minor artist. No works from this early phase of his career have been preserved.

On 16 February 1628, Angela Geronima, a child of the young artist and his first wife was baptized. This suggests that he had already established a family by this time. No further information about this first marriage is available.

His paintings from shortly after 1620 show the influence of Caravaggio and his Neapolitan followers. He reportedly painted a copy of Caravaggio's Flagellation (Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte). At one time, both the copy and original hung together in San Domenico Maggiore. Not all scholars accept that the copy was in fact painted by Vacarro. After 1630 Vaccaro came into contact with the work of Guido Reni, Anthony van Dyck and Pietro Novelli. He produced copies of the work of these artists for Neapolitan collectors and Flemish art dealers in Naples such as Gaspar Roomer and Jan Vandeneyden. It is believed he was also active as an art dealer, as was common among Neapolitan painters of the time.

Vaccaro contracted his second marriage to the 24-year old Anna Criscuolo on 17 April 1639. A year later, on 13 March 1640, their son Tomaso Domenico Nicola was born. He would later be known as the painter Nicola Vaccaro.

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