Italian Artist; Baroque Classicism (1625-1713)
Carlo Maratta, also spelled Maratti, born May 15, 1625, Camerano, Papal States, Italy – died December 15, 1713, Rome, Italy, one of the leading painters of the Roman school in the later 17th century and one of the last great masters of Baroque classicism. His final works offer an early example of “arcadian good taste” (named for the Academy of Arcadians, of which he was a member), a style that was to dominate Roman art for the first half of the 18th century.
Maratta went early to Rome, where he studied. His reputation was established with his first public work, the Nativity (1650). A few years later he was noticed by Pope Alexander VII, and thereafter he secured an almost uninterrupted series of important commissions for altarpieces in Italian churches. He also executed a number of decorative ceiling frescoes in Roman palaces, the most important of which was for Pope Clement X in the Palazzo Altieri. Maratta painted with a clear and balanced composition that promotes papal clemency and Christian virtues. His critique of the style of Andrea Sacchi (1599 -1661) places him securely in the classical camp of Roman Baroque painting. Maratta was one of the most distinguished portrait painters in Italy during this period, and his portraits include one of Pope Clement IX.
In 1679 or 1680, a daughter, Faustina, was born to Maratta by his mistress, Francesca Gommi (or Gomma). He legally recognized her as his daughter in 1698 and upon becoming a widower in 1700, Maratta married the girl’s mother. His daughter’s features were incorporated into a number of Maratta’s late paintings. In 1704 Maratta was knighted by Pope Clement XI.
With a general decline in patronage around the beginning of the eighteenth century and largely due to the economic downturn, Maratta turned his hand to painting restoration, including works by Raphael and Carracci. Maratta was only partly a classicist in practice. His work displays without restraint the Baroque quality of magnificence, and he was wholeheartedly engaged in the task of representing with the utmost splendour the dogmas of the Counter-Reformation.
The record price for this artist at auction is $1,216,000 USD for “Tobias and the Angel” – oil on canvas 26½” x 38½” sold at Christie’s New York, January 6, 2001 – Lot 153.
One Reply to “Carlo Maratta”