Marcello Bacciarelli

Marcello Bacciarelli
Self-portrait, 1793
Born	16 February 1731 Rome, Italy
Died	5 January 1818 (aged 86) Warsaw, Poland
Nationality	Polish-Italian
Known for	Painting, drawing
Movement	Baroque, Neoclassicism

Marcello Bacciarelli (Italian pronunciation: [marˈtʃɛllo battʃaˈrɛlli]; 16 February 1731 – 5 January 1818) was a Polish-Italian painter of the late-baroque and Neoclassic periods.

Biography

He was born in Rome, and studied there under Marco Benefial. In 1750 he was called to Dresden in Saxony, where he was employed by Elected King Augustus III of Poland; after whose death he went to Vienna, and thence to Warsaw. There he met and worked by the side of another Italian painter in Dresden, Vienna and Warsaw, Bernardo Bellotto. He was the Director there of the newly set up Academy of Arts of Warsaw.

He painted a set of portraits depicting nearly all Polish kings, from Bolesław I the Brave to the last king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Stanisław II Augustus who was also Bacciarelli's patron and admirer. He also made a portrait of Izabela Lubomirska in her wedding gown, that she commissioned years later after her marriage.^[1] Bacciarelli was also keen in painting culturally significant scenes from the history of Poland. Following the partitions of Poland and after Napoleon's rise to power he moved to the Duchy of Warsaw, a client state of the First French Empire and died in 1818.

A number of his paintings were painted for King Stanisław II Augustus of Poland and are in the Royal Castle in Warsaw. These include:

• Strength, Reason, Belief, and Justice, in the Old Audience Chamber
• The Flourishing of the Arts, Sciences, Agriculture, and Trade on the ceiling of the Old Audience Chamber
• Rebecca and Eleazar in the King's Bedroom
• Esther and Ahasuerus in the King's Bedroom

During Bacciarelli's early years in Warsaw, the young Alexander Kucharsky began to train as a painter in his studio.^[2] Another notable pupil of Bacciarelli's was Kazimierz Wojniakowski.

Gallery

• Works of Marcello Bacciarelli
• 

  Stanisław II Augustus, King of Poland

• 

  Count Brühl

• 

  Augustus the Strong

• 

  Marie Christine

• 

  Blue Marquise

• 

  Anna Lampel

• 

  Self-portrait in Cossack robe

• 

  Kazimierz Poniatowski

• 

  Stanisław Poniatowski

References

• Bryan, Michael (1886). Robert Edmund Graves, ed. Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical (Volume I: A-K). York St. #4, Covent Garden, London; Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18, 2007: George Bell and Sons. p. 66.

1. The Ideal Eighteenth-Century Wedding Gown of Izabela Lubomirska at the Wilanów Palace Museum (accessed 9 November 2011)]
2. Le peintre KUCHARSKY at museelouisxvii.com (accessed 28 December 2007)