''Allegory of Faith'' (v.1750) San Zanipolo Venice Francesco Fontebasso (4 October 1707 – 31 May 1769) was an Italian painter of the late-

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

Rococo Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...

period of

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

. He first apprenticed with

Sebastiano Ricci Sebastiano Ricci (1 August 165915 May 1734) was an Italian Baroque painter of the late Baroque period in Venetian painting. About the same age as Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, Piazzetta, and an elder contemporary of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Tie ...

, but was strongly influenced by his contemporary,

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo Giovanni Battista Tiepolo ( , ; 5 March 1696 – 27 March 1770), also known as Giambattista (or Gianbattista) Tiepolo, was an Italian painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice who painted in the Rococo style, considered an import ...

. In 1761, Fontebasso visited

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

and produced ceiling paintings and decorations for the

Winter Palace The Winter Palace is a palace in Saint Petersburg that served as the official residence of the House of Romanov, previous emperors, from 1732 to 1917. The palace and its precincts now house the Hermitage Museum. The floor area is 233,345 square ...

. Fontebasso returned to Venice in 1768. He helped decorate a chapel in

San Francesco della Vigna San Francesco della Vigna is a Roman Catholic church in the Sestiere of Castello, Venice, Castello in Venice, northern Italy. History Along with Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, this is one of two Franciscan churches in Venice. The site, original ...

. He died in Venice in 1769. He is represented in collections in e.g.

Kadriorg Palace Kadriorg Palace (, ) is an 18th-century Petrine Baroque palace in Kadriorg, Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Both the Estonian and the German names for the palace mean "Catherine's valley". It was built in 1718–1725 to Nicola Michetti's desi ...

(part of the

Art Museum of Estonia The Art Museum of Estonia () was established in 1919. Originally based in Kadriorg Palace, the museum has expanded across several sites and today exhibits both international and local art works. At the end of the 1970s, in the 1980s the first br ...

) in

Tallinn Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and ...

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

. The Prado Museum in Spain owns a painting ''The Bridegroom and the foolish Virgins'' along with 9 drawings.

References

Sources

Getty biography
(archived 20 September 2006) {{DEFAULTSORT:Fontebasso, Francesco 1707 births 1769 deaths 18th-century Italian painters Italian male painters Painters from Venice 18th-century Italian male artists