Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi, called Il Bolognese (1606-1680)

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi
Landscape with Tobias and the Angel
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

"Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi was an Italian painter, printmaker and architect.  Little is known of his early years, although he may have trained in his native Bologna, probably in the circle of the Carracci.  In 1626 he moved to Rome and became associated with the group of artists working around Pietro da Cortona.  Grimaldi was a member of the Accademia di San Luca, which he entered in 1635.  . . .  Between 1647 and 1649 Grimaldi was involved in the construction of the Villa Pamphilij in Rome, working as assistant architect, garden designer and painter to Alessandro Algardi.  Grimaldi also worked outside Rome, and between 1649 and 1651 he is documented in Paris working on various commissions, including the decoration of Cardinal Mazarin's palace (now the Bibliothèque Nationale) in collaboration with Giovanni Francesco Romanelli, the Palais du Louvre, and the Jesuit church.  On his return to Rome, Grimaldi worked under the supervision of Pietro da Cortona, executing part of the decoration of the Quirinale Palace for Popes Alessandro VII and Clement IX.  . . .  His last years were devoted to fresco painting, particularly landscapes surrounded by decorative cartouches with foliage, painted for the leading residences in Rome."

– from curator's notes at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi (landscape) and Alessandro Algardi (figures)
Landscape with Holy Family (Rest on the Flight into Egypt)
ca. 1650
drawing
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

"Two contemporary Bolognese draftsmen worked at different times on this unique drawing.  Sculptor Alessandro Algardi added the figures after painter Francesco Grimaldi had created the landscape.  . . .  The artists' styles are distinctive.  Algardi drew his playful grouping with a more delicate, graceful, even fragile line than Grimaldi's bold squiggles and hatching, which are especially evident in the dynamic, dominant tree.  These two artists worked together on architectural commissions, yet only one other similar sheet exists, an architectural drawing in which Algardi corrected and added to Grimaldi's work."

– from curator's notes at the Getty Museum

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi
Landscape with Tobias and the Angel
before 1680
oil on copper
Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi
Landscape with Stream in Foreground
before 1680
drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi
Study of Trees
before 1680
drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi
Landscape with Classical Buildings and Figures
before 1680
oil on canvas
National Trust, Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi
Landscape with Two Figures in Foreground
before 1680
drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi
Landscape
before 1680
drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi
River Landscape with Fishermen
before 1680
oil on canvas
National Trust, Hinton Ampner, Hampshire

 Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi
Group of Figures conversing in a Landscape
before 1680
drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi
Two Youths by a Wall
before 1658
drawing
British Museum

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi
Group of Trees
ca. 1675-80
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi
Landscape with high exterior walls of a garden
before 1658
drawing
British Museum

Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi
Classical Italian Landscape
ca. 1675-80
oil on canvas
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, Lancashire