Fra Galgario

Fra Galgario
self portrait, 1732
Born	Bergamo
Baptised	4 March 1655
Died	December 1743  Bergamo
Occupation	Friar, painter
Parent(s)	Domenico Ghislandi

Fra’ Galgario (4 March 1655 – December 1743), born Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi, and also called Fra’ Vittore del Galgario, was an Italian painter, mainly active in Bergamo as a portraitist during the Rococo or late-Baroque period.

Biography

Giuseppe Vittore was born in Bergamo to an artist father, Domenico Ghislandi. Initially, he entered the studio of Giacomo Cotta, then Bartolomeo Bianchi, and finally the studio of Sebastiano Bombelli in Venice in the 1690s. He also reported training with the German portrait artist Salomon Adler in Milan.

In 1702, Ghislandi junior entered the religious life in the Order of the Minims at the Monastery of Galgario, in Bergamo, where he took, as was the custom, a new name. In his case it was the name of the saint for whom the monastery was named.

Even as a professed religious, Ghislandi continued activity as an artist. In 1717 he was elected a member of the Accademia Clementina of Bologna.

His work is said to blend the attention to colourism and glamour that captivates Renaissance-Baroque portraiture of Venice, with the realism of Milanese art such as that of Moroni. Among his pupils were Paolo Bonomino, Cesare Femi, and Pietro Gualdi.

Works

Young boy with apples

• Giovane con bicchiere di vino e natura morta con pane e cipolla
• Giovane con turbante
• Ragazzo col cappello piumato (L’Allegrezza)

Portraits

• Count Giovanni Battista Vailetti
• Accademia Carrara, Bergamo
  • Portrait of Francesco Maria Bruntino
  • Portrait of the Advocate Giacomo Bettami de' Bazini
  • Portrait of G. Secco Suardo
  • Portrait of Count Galeatius Secco Suardo (1681-1733)
  • Portrait of the Gentleman of Finardi's House (1710)
  • Gentlewoman (around 1710)
• Luigi Koelliker collection:
  • Portrait of Gian Domenico Tassi (between 1710–15)
• Portrait of Clara Benaglio Finardi (1710), private collection
• Giovanni Secco Suardo and Servant (1711) Giovanni Secco Suardo
• Gentleman
• Portrait of Count Giovan Battista Vailetti (1720), Galleria dell'Accademia, Venice

  

  Portrait of Count Giovan Battista Vailetti

• Portrait of a Young Girl, National Museum of Fine Arts, Algiers
• Portrait of Count Andra Asperti With His Son
• Portrait of Count Bartolomeo Secco Suardo in Arms
• Portrait of Count Filippo Marenzi
• Portrait of Count Gerolamo Secco Suardo
• Portrait of Count Giovan Battista Vailetti
• Portrait of Dottor Bernardi
• Portrait of Marquess Giuseppe Maria Rota and Captain Antonio Brinzago da Lodi
• Portrait of Marshal Matthias von der Schulenburg
• Portrait of Sculptor Andrea Fantoni
• Portrait of the Advocate Giacomo Bettami de' Bazini
• Portrait of Bartolomeo Manganoni
• Portrait of Bertrama Daina de' Valsecchi
• Portrait of Carlo Tinti
• Portrait of Domenico Ghislandi
• Portrait of Elizabeth Piavana Ghidotti
• Portrait of Young Sculptor, University of Arizona Art Museum, Tucson
• Portrait of a Lady

Busts

• Bust of Vitellio Imperatore
• Bust of a Poet Laureate

References

• Wittkower, Rudolf (1993). "Art and Architecture Italy, 1600-1750". Pelican History of Art. 1980. Penguin Books Ltd. p. 493.
• short bio

External links

• Painters of reality: the legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Galgario (see index)