Paolo Monaldi

Italian painter, a pupil and minor follower of Andrea Locatelli. He painted mainly bambocciate, setting his low-life figures in an Arcadian atmosphere without, however, subordinating them to the landscape, as did Locatelli in the paintings for which he was best known. Monaldi's canvases depict scenes of simple country life (games, dances and drinking sessions) in settings that are characterized by ruined, thatched buildings. More realistic in approach is his signed and dated portrait of the Horse Aquilino (1752; Palazzo Braschi, Rome), painted for Prince Camillo Rospigliosi, who was passionately fond of horses and commissioned Monaldi and Giovanni Reder (b. 1639) to paint those in his stables. Monaldi's religious oeuvre is limited to two small pendants, the Betrayal and the Agony in the Garden (both 1758; private collection), and a painting on copper of the Blessed Giacinta Marescotti (Galleria Barberini, Rome). The holy figures in these possess the evanescent sweetness that often characterizes 18th-century religious sentiment, for example in the work of Sebastiano Conca and Francesco Trevisani.

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