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| Francesco Albani Christ appearing to the Virgin ca. 1597-99 drawing with watercolor Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Francesco Albani Mercury ca. 1609 drawing on blue paper Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Francesco Albani Phoebus Apollo with personifications of the Seasons, Hours, and Planets 1611-12 ceiling fresco Palazzo Verospi, Rome |
"Francesco Albani, Italian painter, was born at Bologna. His father was a silk merchant, and intended to bring up his son to the same occupation; but Albani was already, at the age of twelve, filled with so strong an inclination for painting, that on the death of his father he devoted himself entirely to art. His first master was Denis Calvaert, with whom Guido Reni was at the same time a pupil. He was soon left by Calvaert entirely to the care of Guido, and contracted with him a close friendship. He followed Guido to the school of the Carracci; but after this, owing to mutual rivalry, their friendship began gradually to cool. They kept up for a long time a keen competition, and their mutual emulation called forth some of their best productions. Notwithstanding this rivalry, they still spoke of each other with the highest esteem. Albani after having greatly improved himself in the school of the Carracci, went to Rome, where he opened an academy and resided for many years. Here he painted, after the designs of Annibale Carracci, the whole of the frescoes in the chapel of San Diego in the church of San Giacomo degli Spagnuoli. His best frescoes are those on mythological subjects, of which there is a large number in the Verospi, now Torlonia, Palace. On the death of his wife he returned to Bologna, where he married a second time and resided till his death. His wife and children were very beautiful and served him for models. The learning displayed in the composition of his pictures, and their minute elaboration and exquisite finish, gave them great celebrity and entitle them to a distinctive place among the products of the Bolognese school."
– from the artist's biography in the 1911 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica
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| Francesco Albani Dancing Cupids 1622-23 oil on copper Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Francesco Albani Mars and Venus before 1660 oil on canvas Chiswick House, London |
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| Francesco Albani Judgment of Paris 1650s oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Francesco Albani Venus attended by Nymphs and Cupids ca. 1633 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Francesco Albani Apollo and Daphne ca. 1615-20 oil on copper Musée du Louvre |
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| Francesco Albani Salmacis and Hermaphroditus ca. 1620 oil on copper Musée du Louvre |
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| Francesco Albani Penitent Magdalene ca. 1650 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome |
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| Francesco Albani Portrait of Andrea Calvi 1636 oil on canvas National Museum Wales, Cardiff |
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| Francesco Albani Holy Family with Angels 1608-1610 oil on copper Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Francesco Albani Madonna and Child with Angels ca. 1610-15 oil on slate Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome |
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| Francesco Albani Landscape with Venus and Cupids before 1660 oil on copper Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Francesco Albani Venus and Cupid ca. 1640-45 oil on copper Wallace Collection, London |
"Venus and Cupid repeats motifs found in Albani's work in the late 1620s. Albani is alleged to have modelled the putti in his paintings on his own babies, suspended from the ceiling with ropes. The group of children lighting torches, here signifying the contagious power of Love, recurs in Albani's Fire, one of a set of The Elements (Turin, Galleria Sabauda) dateable 1626-1628. Albani's small scale, carefully finished cabinet pictures particularly appealed to French collectors in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: Louis XIV had more pictures by Albani than any other Bolognese painter. This example was acquired by Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford, in 1849, and bequeathed to the nation by Lady Wallace in 1897. The 4th Marquess emulated ancien régime taste in purchasing this modest but decorative picture at a time in the mid-nineteenth century when Albani's works, criticised for their frivolous and repetitive nature, were actually beginning to fall out of favour."
– from curator's notes at the Wallace Collection