Francesco Zuccarelli

Francesco Zuccarelli
Portrait of Zuccarelli by Richard Wilson
Born	(1702-08-15)15 August 1702 Pitigliano
Died	30 December 1788(1788-12-30) (aged 86) Florence
Nationality	Italian
Known for	Painting
Movement	Late Baroque or Rococo

Francesco Zuccarelli (formerly also Zuccherelli, Italian pronunciation: [franˈtʃesko dzukkaˈrɛlli], 15 August 1702 – 30 December 1788) RA, was an Italian painter of the late Baroque or Rococo period. He is considered to be the most important landscape painter to have emerged from his adopted city of Venice during the mid-eighteenth century, and his Arcadian views became popular throughout Europe and especially in England where he resided for two extended periods. In 1768, Zuccarelli became a founding member of the Royal Academy of Arts, and upon his final return to Italy, he was elected president of the Venetian Academy.

Born at Pitigliano, in southern Tuscany, Zuccarelli began his apprenticeship in Rome c. 1713–14 with the portrait painters Giovanni Maria Morandi (1622–1717) and his pupil Pietro Nelli (1672–1740), under whose tutelage he learned the elements of design while absorbing the lessons of Roman classicism. Francesco completed his first commission in his hometown of Pitigliano in the years 1725–27, a pair of chapel altarpieces. With the sponsorship of the Florentine art connoisseur, Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri (1676–1742), in the late 1720s and early 1730s Zuccarelli focused on etching. He eventually produced at least 43 prints, the majority consisting of two series which recorded the deteriorating frescoes of Giovanni da San Giovanni (1592–1636) and Andrea del Sarto (1486–1531). During his period in Florence, though preoccupied with figurative subjects, he began to experiment with drawings in landscape, and according to a non-contemporary source, his introduction to the latter genre was through the Roman landscape painter and etcher Paolo Anesi (1697–1773).