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 |