Italian Painters of Influence

• Canaletto, Antonio (1697-1768) was a Venetian painter of Veduta (city views).  His views of Venice were highly successful, and by 1726 he was already working specifically for an English market.   In1730 Canaletto worked out an arrangement with Joseph Smith, later the British Consul in Venice, whereby Smith had the first pick of his works, arranged other sales, and probably arranged the artist's visit to England from 1746 to 1756, with brief returns to Venice.  During his years in England he painted many views of London as well as Warwick Castle and Eton College.  Royal College has the largest collection of Cananettos.  Most other galleries in London have a few.
  
• Guardi, Francesco (1712-93) was a popular Venetian veduta ("town view") painter of the eighteenth century.  Most of his paintings were of Venice and were sold directly to tourists so that according to one rumor of the time Guardi was a desciple of Canaletto and worked for an Englishman.  His brother-in-law Tiepolo may have had some influence on his painting style and color.
  
• Panini (or Pannini), Giovanni Paolo (c. 1692-1765/8) was the first painter to specialize in ruins, which he treated as Roman Vedute.  His paintings of modern Rome, and in particular of the better known ruins, were enormously popular among Grand Tourists, and his works are found in many museums.  Piranesi and Canaletto were both influenced by Panini.
  
• Piranesi, Giovanni Battista (1720-78) was a Venetian archetect who went to Rome in 1740 and recorded Roman antiquities in numerous etchings which greatly influenced the way many Englishmen envisioned Rome.  His most original works are probably the Carceri d'Invenzione (1749/50), which depict imaginary and fantastic prisons.  Far more famous, however, were his Vedute, 135 etchings of Rome published form 1745 onwards.  Along with Panini, Piranesi created the image which many untraveled people had or Rome, just as Canaletto and Guardi had for Venice.  Horace Walpole greatly admired his etchings.
  
• Rosa, Salvator (1615-73) was in many ways the nineteenth century's ideal Romantic artist.  He was a painter, etcher, poet, musician, and even, according to legend, a bandit.  He was best know for his landscapes, which have a "picturesque" quality which made them appeal very strongly in England in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
  
• Tieplolo, Giovanni Battista (1696-1770) was perhaps the greatest painter of the eighteenth century and the purest representative of Italian Rococo.  Most of his works are large religious, historical, or allegorical frescoes in churches and palaces.  His output was enormous because he worked from small modelli which were executed by skilled assistants under the artist's direct supervision.  Many of these modelli survive and are exhibited in galleries and museums.  English Grand Tourists had limited access to the works of Tiepolo
  

• Verrio, Antonio (1639-1707) was a Neapolitan painter invited to join the French Academy in 1671 who moved to England in the next year.  He worked at Windsor and Whitehall from 1675 to 1684, when he succeeded Lely as Court Painter.  After 1688 he worked at Chatsworth and Burghley, and after 1699 at Hampton Court and Windsor under the direction of William III.