Saturday, February 9, 2019

Domenico Fetti (1589-1624) - Rome, Mantua, Venice

Domenico Fetti
Moses before the Burning Bush
ca. 1613-17
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Domenico Fetti
St Peter
ca. 1613
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Domenico Fetti
Penitent Magdalen
ca. 1615
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

"Domenico Fetti was born in 1589, almost certainly in Rome, and is known to have been educated at the Collegio Romano.  He probably received his initial artistic training from his father, Pietro Fetti, a painter, perhaps from Ferrara, about whom very little is known.  Contemporary sources refer to Domenico Fetti as a student of Ludovico Cardi, called Il Cigoli.  Domenico could have entered Cigoli's shop as early as 1604, the year in which the Florentine painter came to Rome.  . . .  Domenico's earliest known works, those of ca. 1610-14, show his awareness of contemporary developments in Rome, particularly the works of Peter Paul Rubens and other Netherlanders, as well as the landscapes of the German painter Adam Elsheimer.  Domenico also appears to have studied the works of Federico Barocci, Annibale Carracci, Caravaggio, and Orazio Borgianni.  In this initial period, led by his teacher Cigoli and by the example of Rubens and Annibale Carracci, Domenico initiated his abiding interest in sixteenth-century Venetian painting.  By 1611, or perhaps a year or two earlier, Domenico had established a close relationship with his most important patron, Cardinal Ferdinando Gonzaga, who became Duke of Mantua in 1613.  Domenico, accompanied by his father, brothers, and sisters, went to Mantua as court painter in 1613 or 1614.  In the extensive Gonzaga collections Domenico continued his study of the Venetian masters of the sixteenth century, thereby continuing a clear and consistent development of his initial Venetianism.  . . .  Domenico's first documented trip to Venice, a buying expedition for Duke Ferdinando, occurred in 1621, but he may have gone earlier.  He is reported to have visited Bologna in 1618-1619 and probably spent a few productive months in Verona in 1622, either before or after his flight from Mantua to Venice in August of that year.  This precipitous departure was occasioned by an argument between Domenico and a cleric from an important Mantuan family at a soccer match.  Although an initial break with the Duke was resolved, Domenico seems to have been reluctant to return to Mantua for a variety of reasons.  He expressed dismay at the constant hostility of the Mantuan artists, but had also cultivated a lucrative clientele among the Venetian patriciate, most notably Giorgio Contarini degli Scrigni, and had obtained a commission to paint a large canvas for the Palazzo Ducale (not executed).  Domenico's death in Venice in April 1623 cut short this promising new stage of his career."

– from the artist's biography in the Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Domenico Fetti
Emperor Domitian
ca. 1616-17
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Domenico Fetti
Parable of the Mote and the Beam
ca. 1615-23
oil on panel
York Museums Trust (Great Britain)

Domenico Fetti
Parable of the Sower of Tares
ca. 1622
oil on panel
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Domenico Fetti
Vertumnus and Pomona
ca. 1615-23
oil on copper
Courtauld Gallery, London

Domenico Fetti
David with the Head of Goliath
ca. 1620
oil on canvas
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Domenico Fetti
Hero mourning the dead Leander
ca. 1621-22
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Domenico Fetti
Perseus rescuing Andromeda
ca. 1620-22
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Domenico Fetti
Portrait of a Man with a Sheet of Music
ca. 1620
oil on canvas
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Domenico Fetti
The Good Samaritan
ca. 1622
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Domenico Fetti
Sacrifice of Elijah before the Priests of Baal
ca. 1621-22
oil on panel
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Domenico Fetti
Salvator Mundi
ca. 1622-23
oil on panel
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York