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| Michele Rocca Offering to Jupiter before 1751 oil on canvas Government Art Collection, London |
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| attributed to Michele Rocca Apollo and Daphne before 1751 oil on canvas National Trust, Nostell Priory, Yorkshire |
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| Michele Rocca Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise before 1751 oil on canvas private collection |
"Originally from Parma, where Correggio was a primary influence, Michele Rocca traveled to Rome in 1682 and trained under a follower of Pietro da Cortona. Due to his birthplace, Rocca has sometimes been called by the confusing nickname 'Il Parmigianino' – shared with the far more famous Mannerist painter Francesco Mazzola (1503-1540). Around 1687 Rocca was back in Parma, but by 1695 he had returned to Rome. The influence of Sebastiano Conca was strong enough to create occasional mistakes in attribution between the two artists. Rocca became renowned for precious, small-scale cabinet pictures of mythological or religious subjects, generally displaying the languorous eroticism and fashionable chic of the French Rococo. His cosmopolitan style was fundamentally sensual, with luminous pigmentation and rich painterly effects; this artistic vision aligned more closely with the emerging French aesthetic than with his Roman colleagues' Baroque approach."
– adapted from curator's notes at the Getty Museum
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| Michele Rocca Penitent Magdalene ca. 1698 oil on canvas Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Michele Rocca Putti disporting in a Landscape before 1751 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Michele Rocca Virgin Martyrs before 1751 oil on canvas Palazzo Buonaccorsi, Macerata |
"Rocca's importance lies entirely in the field of elegant cabinet paintings, for which he assumed a unique position in Rome, although his name remains among the lesser known. He had no spiritual kinship with the monumentalizing tendency that prevailed among his more famous contemporaries, and his few attempts at altarpieces in the grand style are rather insignificant. On the other hand, few other painters in contemporary Rome were as much at home in the elegant sphere of the Rococo, and it is significant that his little paintings were especially appreciated in France. Although he cannot be considered to have been a good draftsman or a master of composition in the Italian tradition, his art is very personal and distinctive in effect, due to his ability to reduce everything to a pleasing play of juggled contours, attractive lighting and enchanting contrasts of highlights and shadows. His figural types and their movements are unfortunately all too repetitious and schematic, as are certain compositional contrivances, such as the jolly putti or amoretti which in themselves make his paintings easy to recognize. In later years, he may have settled, perhaps only temporarily, in Venice where is documented in 1751. He appears to have died soon thereafter."
– Hermann Voss, from Baroque Painting in Rome (1925), revised and translated by Thomas Pelzel (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy, 1997)
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| Michele Rocca Rinaldo and Armida ca. 1720-50 oil on canvas Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
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| attributed to Michele Rocca after Nicolas Bertin Leda and the Swan before 1751 oil on canvas Broadsworth Hall, Doncaster |
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| Michele Rocca Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides before 1751 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Michele Rocca Drunken Silenus before 1751 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Michele Rocca St Catherine of Alexandria before 1751 oil on canvas Palazzo Pianetti, Jesi |
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| Michele Rocca Finding of Moses ca. 1710 oil on canvas Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago |
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| Michele Rocca Judgment of Paris ca. 1710-20 oil on canvas Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil |
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| Michele Rocca Toilet of Venus ca. 1710-20 oil on canvas Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil |
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| Michele Rocca David and Bathsheba before 1751 oil on canvas private collection |