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Drawing, Francesco Allegrini |
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| Catalog#: |
WOP 17-07 |
| Artist: |
Francesco Allegrini |
| Category: |
Drawings |
| Origin: |
Italy |
| Era: |
17th Century |
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| Francesco Allegrini was a pupil of Cavaliere d'Arpino, and attracted at an early age by the work of Pietro da Cortona, although the full Baroque remained alien to him. His work has often been confused with that of his father, Flaminio Allegrini (? 1587-? 1663), also a painter. Many thought that he painted figures in paintings by Claude Lorrain. Francesco Allegrini was attracted to the work of Pietro da Cortona and worked in The Cathedral of Savona and in the Durazzi and Gavotti palaces in Genoa. It remains unclear whether these commissions were his or his fathers. Francesco worked primarily in Rome, where many of his canvases and frescoes are preserved in churches and palaces. Around 1650 he executed the St Catherine altarpiece in the church of SS Domenico e Sisto, Rome (in situ). Between 1652 and 1654 he was working on frescoes in the Speralli Chapel in the cathedral at Gubbio. In 1653, he took part in an important project to decorate the church of S. Marco, Rome, under the supervision of Pietro da Cortona. The two canvases he painted there, SS Abdon and Sennen Yoked to the Cart of Emperor Decius and the Consecration of the Basilica of St Mark (both in situ), reveal the influence of Andrea Sacchi's and Pier Francesco Mola's neo-Venetian art. At about the same time he painted the Scenes from the Old Testament in the Palazzo Pamphili in Piazza Navona, Rome. Allegrini also painted battle scenes, including frescoes in the Palazzo Rospigliosi (c. 1655) and the Palazzo Altemps. Between 1659 and 1660 he produced what was perhaps his most important work, a cycle of three frescoes,the Battle of Muret, the Martyrdom of St Peter of Verona and the Triumph of St Thomas Aquinas,in the Palazzo del Sant'Uffizio, Rome. His last Roman commission was the series of frescoes depicting scenes from the Life of St Alexander in the church of S.S Cosmo e Damiano. He settled in Gubbio, in 1661, where he painted numerous altarpieces in a style that somewhat echoes Cortona, for example the Virgin and Child with Saints in Santa Croce della Foce (1668; in situ). His last works include the frescoes painted between 1674 and 1678 in the church of the Madonna del Prato. *
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