Nerone esamina il corpo di Agrippina - Negri

Pietro Negri (1628,

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 ...

- 31 May 1679, Venice) was an Italian painter in the

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 ...

style who belonged to the so-called "tenebrosi" (dark or gloomy ones).

Biography

He was likely born in Venice. Early sources assumed that he was the son of a sculptor named Domenico Negri, but his father's name is given as Lunardo in some documents and Francesco in others. His first art lessons came from

Matteo Ponzone Matteo Ponzone (17th century) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active between 1630 and 1700 mainly in Venice. He was a pupil of Santo Peranda. Several of his works are in the churches and public buildings of Venice, particularly in Sa ...

. Later, he worked with Francesco Ruschi. In his early days, much of his work is difficult to distinguish, stylistically, from

Antonio Zanchi Antonio Zanchi (; 6 December 1631 – 12 April 1722) was an Italian painter of the Baroque, active mainly in Venice, but his prolific works can also be seen in Padova, Treviso, Rovigo, Verona, Vicenza, Loreto, Brescia, Milano, and Bergamo, a ...

. His first verified work is from 1658, when he signed an engraving on the

frontispiece Frontispiece may refer to: * Frontispiece (books), a decorative illustration facing a book's title page * Frontispiece (architecture) In architecture, the term frontispiece is used to describe the Façade, principal face of the building, usually ...

of ''Antioco'' by the poet,

Nicolò Minato Count Nicolò Minato (b. Bergamo, ca. 1627; d. Vienna, 28 February 1698) was an Italian poet, librettist and impresario. His career can be divided into two parts: the years he spent at Venice, from 1650 to 1669, and the years at Vienna, from 1669 u ...

. The paintings attributed to him, prior to the 1660s, are all missing. A painting of ''Antonio e Cleopatra'' is dated from c.1664. In 1670, he produced the ''Albero serafico dei Ordini francescani'' (Seraphic Tree of the

Franciscans The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor being the largest conte ...

), currently at the

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...

Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari The Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, commonly abbreviated to ''the Frari'', is a church located in the Campo dei Frari at the heart of the San Polo district of Venice, Italy. It is the largest church in the city and it has the status ...

. One of his best known works is ''Nerone che esamina il corpo di Agrippina'' (Nero Examining the Corpse of Agrippina), in the collection of the

Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister The (, ''Old Masters Gallery'') in Dresden, Germany, displays around 750 paintings from the 15th to the 18th centuries. It includes major Italian Renaissance painting, Italian Renaissance works as well as Dutch Golden Age painting, Dutch and F ...

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

. He married Franceschina Maria Barbara, with whom he had two sons. She died shortly after giving birth to the second and he remarried in 1673, to Angela Caroli, the widow of a merchant. In 1673, he created what many consider to be his masterpiece; a monumental "telero" (canvas applied directly to a wall) depicting

Mark the Evangelist Mark the Evangelist (Koine Greek, Koinē Greek: Μᾶρκος, romanized: ''Mârkos''), also known as John Mark (Koine Greek, Koinē Greek language, Greek: Ἰωάννης Μᾶρκος, Romanization of Greek, romanized: ''Iōánnēs Mârkos;'' ...

and Saint Rocco, who interceded with the

Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

to end a plague in Venice, on the left wall of the staircase at the

Scuola Grande di San Rocco The Scuola Grande di San Rocco is a building in Venice, northern Italy. It is noted for its collection of paintings by Tintoretto and generally agreed to include some of his finest work. History The building is the seat of a confraternity establ ...

, opposite a depiction of the plague of 1630, by Zanchi.Foto della tela su Atlante dell'arte italiana.
He also took the occasional student; notably the Late Baroque painter,

Simone Brentana Simone Brentana (1656 – 9 June 1742
)) was an Italian painter of the

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

. He was interred, at his widow's expense, in the , which was demolished in 1873, after many years of serving as a mill.

References

External links

Biography
by Enrico Lucchese from the ''

Dizionario biografico degli italiani The ''Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani'' () is a biographical dictionary published in 100 volumes by the Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, started in 1960 and completed in 2020. It includes about 40,000 biographies of distinguished Italia ...

'' @

Treccani Institute Giovanni Treccani for the publication of the Italian Encyclopedia (), also known as Treccani Institute or simply Treccani, is a cultural institution of national interest, active in the publishing field, founded by Giovanni Treccani ...

More works by Negri
@ ArtNet {{DEFAULTSORT:Negri, Pietro 1628 births 1679 deaths Italian painters Italian Baroque painters Painters from the Republic of Venice

Biography

References

Further reading

External links