Giuseppe Passeri

1654 – 1714

Italian painter and draughtsman, nephew of the painter Giovanni Battista Passeri (c. 1610-1679). He was trained by his uncle and then by Carlo Maratti. The early sources (Pio, Pascoli) claim that he became Maratti's favourite pupil and that, at his own expense, Maratti encouraged him to copy the Roman works of Giovanni Lanfranco, an assertion that is corroborated by surviving copies. Maratti taught him to respect the traditions of Michelangelo and Annibale Carracci, to study the mastery of composition, gesture and expression in works by Reni, Domenichino and Poussin, and to emulate the beauty of colour in the art of Titian and Correggio. Above all, Maratti recommended him to study Raphael, whom he himself revered. Many of Passeri's drawings after these and other artists have survived (three in Düsseldorf). It was through these studies that he developed a relatively independent painting style, one that is distinguished by increasingly free brushwork, a subtle use of colour and lively composition.

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