Baldassare Franceschini, Il Volterrano (Volterra,... Lot n° 51

Baldassare Franceschini, Il Volterrano (Volterra, 1611 - Florence, 1689) Oil on canvas. 92 x 73 cm. Baroque Florentine painter, he was known for his frescoes, but also for his easel paintings. The son of a sculptor, he first studied with Cosimo Daddi in Volterra, moving to Florence in 1628 and joining the Matteo Rosselli workshop. In Florence in 1636 he received his first important commission from Lorenzo de Medici, who engaged him to decorate the Villa La Petraia with scenes illustrating the Medici family history. Franceschini took twelve years to finish it, but it meant that his position as best-known fresco painter was assured among the nobility. In 1652, or thereabouts, he completed the frescoes begun by Pietro da Cortona at the Palazzo Pitti. The frescoes in the Saint Cecile and Saint Lucy chapels in the Santissima Annunziata, those at Orlandi Chapel and the Santa Maria Maggiore chapel, and those at the Niccolini Chapel in the Santa Croce, and those in the dome of the Santissima Annunziata, are also his. They are all in Florence. Many museums have his paintings in their collections, including the Uffizi and the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, the San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts and the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart.