Faustino Bocchi

An example of a Bocchi painting

Faustino Bocchi (1659–1742) was an Italian painter, active in Brescia, who specialized in bizarre paintings of dwarfs.

Dwarf saves companions from the attack by a Shrimp.

Biography

These were generally seen as humorous or satirical, and often scabrous pieces, though some resemble the decorative conceits of Arcimboldo, while others suggest the nightmarish world of Hieronymus Bosch. Cristiani cites this as the "capricious particularity to represent with his master paint-brush: the battles, the fights, the games, the dances, the feasts, and triumphs of the pygmies".^[1] By some he is described as a genre painter of the Bamboccianti, specifically a Bambocciate di nani or arte pigmeo.

It is said that Bocchi's paintings were highly prized by Bergamesque collectors such as Giacomo Carrara and Ludovico Ferronati. Bocchi is said to have been the pupil of Angelo Everardi (il Fiamminghino or Fiammenghino). Enrico Albricci is said to have been his pupil for a spell.

Arrival of the Wife

References

1. la capricciosa particolarità di rappresentare con maestro pennello, le battaglie, le lotte, i giochi , i balli , i conviti , e i trionfi de' pigmei.

• Painting at parish church of Zogno..
• John T Spike (1986). Centro Di, Kimball Museum of Art, Fort Worth, Texas, USA., ed. Giuseppe Maria Crespi and the Emergence of Genre Painting in Italy. pp. 68–69.
• Farquhar, Maria (1855). Ralph Nicholson Wornum, ed. Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters. Woodfall & Kinder, Angel Court, Skinner Street, London; Digitized by Googlebooks from Oxford University copy on Jun 27, 2006. p. 27.
• Federico Nicoli Cristiani (1807). Della Vita delle pitture di Lattanzio Gambara; Memorie Storiche aggiuntevi brevi notizie intorno a' più celebri ed eccelenti pittori Bresciani. Spinelli e Valgiti, Brescia. pp. 136–137.
• The Metropolitan Museum: The Eighteenth Century in Italy, Volume 1, By Jacob Bean and Felice Stampfle, page 23.